The Mark
by Trefoil-underscore
Summary: Arix, Outlands scavenger and amateur mage, is pretty good at taking care of himself, but being lost in an underground labyrinth with Herobrine might be a bit much even for him. And there's someone else in there with him... Rated T for some mutilation and completely justified swearing. Updates every few days until finished.
1. Entering the Labyrinth

These caves were weird.

They went on and on, twisting and branching into each other. He had come across and destroyed two spawners, finding only a pair of gloves and some crusts of petrified bread for his trouble. There were no ores. He had gone into the caves because they looked pristine and untouched, and although he saw no ores near the front he was sure he would find some exposed in the walls farther back. What he found, to his amazement, was that the cave he'd dropped into opened up into a vast labyrinth leading back into the hills. Miles and miles of dark passages, corkscrews and dead ends. Rooms of glittering stalactites like fairy ballrooms. Monsters everywhere. And absolutely no ores. After a few hours he kept going more out of curiosity than anything else. The place was just bizarre. Also, he wasn't sure which direction he'd come from, but that wasn't a problem. He'd lost his way in caves before, but he always got out in the end. When he was ready to see the sun again he'd start working his way up. There was bound to be an outlet somewhere, and if it wasn't big enough for him, he had a few sticks of TNT. But he was too fascinated to leave now. There was something else about these caves, a hint of ancient magic that made the passages seem almost to move and scrambled his sense of direction. Now and then he stopped, his neck pricking, and fingered the amulet around his neck. People must have come here once, far in the past, although he saw no traces of them. What had they done to cast such a lasting shadow over the place? He wanted to find out. It was probably foolhardy, but he was a scavenger. Foolhardy was what he did. Red would tell him not to put himself at risk, but then, Red would turn himself inside-out with joy if he found something of historical religious significance. Funny guy, thought Arix. He kept walking into the caves.

He had left Nowa two and a half weeks before, the last inhabited city of men that hadn't fallen to the Corruption and the seat of the Great and Magnanimous High Emperor Strandquist the Golden. "May his shiny ass forever crush the skulls of his lowly servants," Arix muttered. He'd gone far into the Outlands, beyond where even the most foolhardy scavengers regularly went, leaving behind the ruins of outlying towns and not stopping for the fallen stones that marked the site of independent city-states from the old days. Traces of fallen civilization grew more and more faint. The barren foothills where he'd entered the caves might have been abandoned since the dawn of time, but for the distinctly human magic about them. Arix knew just enough magic to recognize its traces, and he walked carefully. Perhaps it saved him. He twitched, feeling as though he'd walked into a spiderweb. A moment later the floor beneath his feet shifted and there was a soft click. He threw himself backwards just as there was a deafening explosion and the corridor was choked in rubble. Fragments of rock bounced off of Arix, knocking him down. Before he could think of moving a chunk of ceiling fell onto his right arm, pinning it with an awful crushing sound. Arix screamed. Then, for a while, there were only faint sounds of rubble settling. The torch had gone out and it was totally dark. Arix lay nearly fainting from pain, trying to understand what had happened. He'd walked into a ward—he thought. That could have been the strange twanging feeling, but what the _hell_ had happened next? He'd set off a booby trap? Who put booby traps _and_ wards in the same corridor, and for the love of Notch what were they doing in an abandoned cave? He gave an experimental tug at his trapped arm and gave up, biting his lip. This wasn't looking good for him. Before long, some of the monsters in the cave would find him and he'd be a goner. And just then something did find him, but it wasn't one of the monsters he was expecting.

He thought he was going insane. He'd injured his eyes. He was hallucinating? A white fire licked at the floors and wall of the corridor and finally settled in a rubble-free section, all at once resolving itself into the shape of a man with a suddenness that sent a shockwave through the air. Several loose bits fell from the ceiling and wall. There was a high, distorted shriek. Arix cringed instinctively, straining his eyes. The white light flickered in a halo around a dark shape lounging against a staff. The air buzzed.  
"Hello there," said the shape, tapping its fingers on the staff and shaking back a mane of hair braided with golden beads. Arix could just see it in the flickering light. His eyes widened. The man had glaring white eyes. He chuckled at Arix's look. "Well, you've found me. Who sent you? You obviously didn't come yourself."  
"I.. I'm just a scavenger."  
"Really?" the blank, shining eyes burned into him."Hmm. Well, you've come to the wrong place."  
"No shit," mumbled Arix, grimacing as he tugged frantically at his arm. The man came closer and smiled down at him.  
"From your fear I believe you know me."  
"Herobrine."  
"I remember a few titles in there, but close enough. I won't quibble with someone who—" suddenly he cocked his head, as if listening. His eyes blazed intently in Arix's general direction. The effect was so uncanny that in terror Arix gave a strong tug at his trapped arm, which he gave up at once with a cry. Herobrine's hand whipped out and tore open Arix's shirt. The amulet lay on his heaving chest. Herobrine pulled it over his head and hefted it in his palm. "Halfway decent enchantment on this. Where'd you get it?"  
"I made it," said Arix faintly, trying not to move. Herobrine looked critically at the crumpled body in front of him.  
"Hmm. A dabbler, are you." he sank to one knee and Arix was able to see him more clearly. His skin was patched with bruises and his nails were long. The buzzing intensified as he came closer.  
"How would you like to participate in some really advanced magic for once?" Arix hesitated, but silence would gain him nothing, and he was already as good as dead.  
"Yes?"  
"Excellent. I'll need to borrow your blood. All of it."  
"Somehow I just knew you were going to say that."  
"Good for you, you're not a _complete_ idiot! I'll be back when I'm ready."  
"Just like that," said Arix as Herobrine stood. He glanced down at him with a trace of amusement.  
"Exactly like that. Why?"  
"You're just going to leave me here? What if something eats me before you get back?"  
"Monsters don't come down this far, and neither would you if you had any sense."  
"But you're going to leave me?"  
"Yes."  
"Look, you're going to kill me. Won't you at least take me with you? This _really_ hurts." Herobrine gave him a smile as cold as the barren ice-plains of the north.  
"Pity you didn't have more foresight."  
"Just move the rock dammit! Please!" Arix screamed. Herobrine looked impassively at him and closed his hand over the amulet with a crushing motion. Then he disappeared in the same manner that he had come. Arix didn't notice the chunks of wall crashing down next to him or the odd way that Herobrine's body dissolved into light. He was clutching his head with his good hand as his mind shattered into a thousand pieces. After that his memory was all a confusion of dreams. He dreamed that a torch came out of the darkness and waved at him. He dreamed that he was floating above the rubble, and that some huge animal was carrying him back the way he'd come, into the caves.

 **A/N: Edit: I'll be going back through here and fixing the paragraphing. It was a bit confusing the first time round.**


	2. Friend

Arix woke suddenly and lay trying to remember what had woken him. He had groaned in pain, and then something warm had brushed over his hair. Everything was dark. He lay listening, and heard something large breathing next to him, fortunately on his left. He stretched out his good hand—his right arm was a mass of pain which he was trying not a think about—and touched fur. He moved his hand. Skin. What? He felt over what he soon realized to be a bearded face. "You're awake," it said. He snatched his hand away. "Speak quietly. He may be nearby."  
"Who are you?"  
"A friend. I heard you wander into the trap. My name's Steve."  
"Hi, Steve. I'm Arix," he said insanely. Steve placed a hand on his shoulder.  
"Hello, Arix. Any internal injuries?"  
"I can't tell."  
"Bleeding from anywhere you shouldn't be?"  
"Er—don't think so."  
"Good." Arix realized he was shivering. It didn't help the fact that he ached all over. He also realized that there was something odd about the pain in his arm. It was localized in a throbbing place above his elbow, and he couldn't feel anything below that. He felt around for his damaged arm with his good hand. He didn't find anything until, feeling upwards, he touched a wad of bloody bandages.  
"Did you cut my arm off?" Steve didn't answer at once. Was he really there?  
"It wasn't salvageable. I'm sorry." Arix lay shivering.  
"Roll over," said Steve after a while, and pulled him over onto his chest. "I don't have a blanket, so I'm your best bet for warmth right now." Arix didn't complain, but lay listening to his heartbeat and hoping for the pain to go away. Steve smelled of sweat and zombie internal juices. It was oddly reassuring. And he was warm. Arix was floating in some half-realm between sleep and waking when Steve tapped him to get his attention. A muffled howl was echoing down the tunnels to them. Steve got up and ran lightly through the darkness with Arix in his arms.  
"Was that _him_?" said Arix as quietly as he could manage.  
"Yes." he gritted his teeth as the jolting of Steve's running started to get to him.  
"How can you see anything?" he asked, after a moment.  
"I can, just barely. I have good night vision. There's a glow up there, I think it's lava. And I don't believe he knows where we are."  
"That's good."  
"But we'd best keep moving. I think he's looking for you." by now Arix could see the light as well, lurid reddish light painting the ceiling ahead of them. Steve paused at the edge of a deep crevice with a shining bottom, then began inching down, onto a wide ledge which was a safe but warm distance from the lava. He put Arix down on the warm stone. Arix sighed happily.  
"Thanks." no answer. He forced his eyes open. Steve had climbed back up to the edge of the crevice and was staring down the corridor in both directions. Arix closed his eyes. A while later he was propped against Steve, who was poking him in the face with something cold.  
"Can you drink? You're going to be dehydrated." he felt around dizzily until he was able to take the water bottle from him and splash it on himself. Some went in his mouth. He felt proud of himself. Steve took out a loaf of bread and divided it between them, feeding him bites. "Do you know your way out?" Arix scoffed.  
"No, I was lost even before I got hit on the head. Now I'm extra lost. Do you?"  
"Nope. These caves are strange. It's almost impossible not to get lost. There are certain to be outlets, though, we just have to find them."  
"Right."  
"And avoid setting off anymore traps, or activating wards, or falling down holes or being eaten. I'd rather not use any light, if possible. Some of his wards activate with torchlight." Arix nodded, too tired to ask how Steve planned to avoid all of those dangers in the dark. He didn't want to move, but he did want to get out of the caves.  
"I think I can walk now."  
"Good."

As it turned out, walking was one thing, but climbing the side of the crevice with one arm was another. Steve ended up dragging him to the top by his good arm, and once there Arix had to take a rest, shivering on the cold stone. Yeah, he'd had enough of this cave. He wanted to see the sun. Steve pulled him to his feet and they began walking, Steve in front, feeling his way, Arix holding onto his shoulder from behind. He would have been lost right from the start without this, because Steve made almost no sound when he walked, and although he said he could faintly see the stones in the cave Arix was completely blind. "Every material in our world emits light," Steve said. "Caves are never completely dark. They're close, but not quite there."  
"So you can see?"  
"Just barely."  
"I can't see anything."  
"Most people can't." they spoke in whispers when they did speak. Arix focused on staying on his feet and moving forwards, and tried not to think too much about the pain. His whole body hurt, but he was starting to notice individual places as well. As they moved through the dark he was mapping out the constellation of his wounds. Pain twinkled across his body at every step, stabbing sharply in one place and dully in another, and he learned what to expect and began cringing before every movement. Steve wasn't moving quickly, but before long he was forced to wait for Arix to drag himself forward. The whole time he was trying to remember something, something that he knew he should know but that was maddeningly absent from his mind. Then it came to him.  
"Do you have void eyes?" he said to Steve. Most people of the Overworld had wide, fixed pupils that were a darker shade of the surrounding iris, but a rare mutation gave black pupils, black as total darkness. Which, according to Steve, didn't exist. These could dilate according to mood or light change and made it harder to see in full sunlight but gave greatly improved night vision. They were not a desirable trait. Humans weren't used to seeing the color black in eyes, it was too much like zombies, which had all black eyes. A person's eyes gradually darkened when they succumbed to the Corruption, and sometimes if they were healed in time they stayed a darker shade than they had been. Dark eyes were scary.  
"Yes," said Steve.  
"So that's why you're out here," said Arix. He'd run away after the Purge, or maybe before if he heard rumors. Good for him. Arix was just as creeped out by void eyes as the next person, but he scoffed at the idea that anyone born with the mutation was no good and marked from birth by the Corruption. And Steve was proving right now how useful they could be.  
"Er, not really." Steve seemed dismissive. Almost as if he wasn't sure what Arix was referring to. Had he been living in the Outlands since _before_ the Purge? What could possibly induce someone to leave the city… wait, the city was a massive dungheap. Arix himself took every opportunity to get away. What was he saying? Again, good for Steve. He would… He was going to say something, wasn't he? No. Yes? His mind was oddly scrambled. He couldn't think. Wait, there were words—not his own words—what was this…

 **Give me your blood, friend**

Steve realized that he'd lost Arix. His hand was no longer on his shoulder. He hesitated, hoping for Arix to bump into him, but instead he heard a whimper followed by a thud from behind him. The scavenger was on the ground. "You should have told me when you were getting tired, I don't mind carrying you." he knelt next to Arix but hesitated to touch him. He was twitching and clutching at his head. "Arix?" Arix caught his breath.  
"It's him."


	3. Wander Forever in Dreams

Arix was vaguely aware of Steve dragging him into a small cave off the main corridor.

 **Come find me, friend. I'm waiting**.

He squirmed, trying to break loose of the voice, but finally gave up. It was too strong. Far away, in another world, Steve was stroking his hair, perhaps as a way of calming both of them.

 **I don't like to wait.**

Arix relaxed and lay on the floor trembling. Steve was braiding strands of Arix's hair to distract himself. It was half an hour before Arix felt able to speak. "I'm OK."  
"Good." Steve gave him a bottle of water and he slowly drank it. "What was that?" Arix tried to explain.  
"I think it's because he has my amulet. It's bound to me with magic so he can use it against me. If I could get it back…"  
"No way."  
"I know. I wouldn't even know where to start."  
"If you think it's bad out here, wait until you see the security closer to his base."  
"You've been there, though?" Steve hesitated.  
"Twice. But things went very, very badly both times. I wouldn't care to bring another person with me. You would die. And I can't leave you here. Besides, he's almost certain to have it with him, and how do you plan to take it back? Just snatch it when he's not looking?"  
"Right. You've been into his base twice? What were you doing?"  
"Spying," said Steve dismissively. "I wanted to see what he was up to. And then he killed me."  
"But you're alive."  
"Well, I mean, nearly." he's either hiding something, thought Arix, or he's slightly insane. Maybe both. But he was certainly tough. To have been into Herobrine's base twice and still be alive… then again, maybe Herobrine had caught and tortured him both times. Maybe he just didn't consider him enough of a threat to bother with killing him. Arix shuddered. A moment later he grunted as he was wrapped in a gentle but smothering hug. "Hey. It's OK."  
"I hope so." Steve laid a finger over his mouth, tensing. Something was moving in the corridor. Steve bolted up as there was a whiz and a thud and Arix heard him rushing forwards. There were brief sounds of scuffling and slicing followed by a gurgle.  
"Archer," said Steve quietly. "That's a good sign—we're moving away from him. It's not good for us though. Can you walk? We should keep moving."  
"Yeah." as Arix felt his way forwards he heard a wooden snap. Steve's breathing sounded pained. Something light and wooden fell on the floor. "Did it hit you?"  
"Barely. I'll be alright."  
"Are you sure?" Arix reached out until he touched Steve. "Where?" Steve guided his hand to his left forearm. It was slick with blood. Arix shook his head in the darkness.  
"I know a healing spell. It wouldn't do much for me, but it might help with the bleeding and some of the pain."  
"No. No magic, he'd sense it. And I heal quickly anyway. Don't worry about me. Let's keep moving." despite what he said, Steve's movements were more cautious as they continued forwards. Arix could tell he was hurting. He started to despair of either of them getting out, and stumbled as he walked. He confessed his fears the third time Steve asked what was wrong.  
"I'm sorry, I feel like I'm just whining. But I have no idea how long I've been down here. I can't see anything."  
"No, I understand. When I was younger my worst fear was being lost in the dark. I used to dream about it—I'd be wandering in an abandoned mineshaft that seemed to go on and on forever, and I had to get out because I was afraid that things were going wrong at home and I should be there. But I just kept going deeper and deeper into the tunnels, and I couldn't find anything familiar or anything leading to the surface, and somehow I felt like it was my own fault. I remember one dream in which I saw a bright light and sped up, but suddenly I was at the end of a broken bridge over a dark chasm that stretched far into the distance. The ceiling close to me was dripping and looked unstable, and I saw that the light I'd followed was lava and not torches."  
"Did it end there?"  
"No. It didn't end until I woke up. I'd just keep wandering forever. …I don't know why I'm telling you this." both men shuddered. "I'm making it worse than it is. I was lucky, really. I had a friend who knew about the dreams, and sometimes if he saw me growing upset while I was asleep he'd lie down next to me and talk to me until I woke up or they went away. Sometimes it helped. I believe there are times that I didn't wake up and never realized that he'd been there. Sometimes even in my dreams I'd know he was there, and feel better—nngh." Arix crashed into Steve and bit back a scream. Steve twitched strangely. After a few moments he kept walking.

 **A/N: Soooo! What's wrong with Steve? Mind control? Trauma? Insanity? Some combination? Or is he just slightly peculiar? Whatever the case, it's obvious he's not telling us everything. Either that or he is literally the most badass badass to ever be badass in a monster-filled world of general badassery. Which is also possible.**


	4. Images of Light

Arix was developing a hunger for light. Ghost images of the Overworld flickered before his eyes. The jumble of colors in a flower girl's stall. Sunsets that reddened the whole sky. The streets lit to a noonday glow at midnight on Lanternmas. More and more he saw chaotic images of streets like the ones in Nowa, heat and dust, sunlight beating down monotonously, quickly shuffling figures with eyes turned down bumping into each other. More and more he felt himself a part of these ghost crowds, and twice he stumbled when one of the figures in the street seemed about to bump into him. The second time Steve stopped, turning towards him. Arix put a hand out and clutched at his arm. Then with a pang he realized that he'd grabbed his left arm, the one that had had an arrow through it recently, and there was dried blood under his fingers. Carefully he explored the area but couldn't find the wound. There should be heat and swelling. There was a lot of caked blood in one area, but it felt like an old scab. But below it the dried blood thinned out. "Um.. where were you shot?"  
"Right there. I heal quickly." Arix clutched his arm above the bloodstains. Had they been walking for _days_? He'd lost his sense of time. But they couldn't have been. Could they? He himself felt no better. They had paused for bread and water once. He had nothing to judge the time by. Not a glimpse of the sky. Not even a torch, little though that would help. "I've been trying to work upwards but it's just impossible," said Steve. "We're several blocks lower than we were when we last spoke. We avoided the creepers, though."  
"There were creepers?"  
"Three of them, down one passage. I think it was a dead end anyway. I was surprised you didn't ask about it when we sped up." he remembered that now, Steve had suddenly pulled him along at a slow jog. But he had been dreaming of a busy day at market. He was walking quickly to get somewhere. Somewhere. It was important. It had to be. He had to get there… he tried to focus on the present. There was nothing to focus on. Darkness, pain that throbbed here and stabbed there, the sound of breathing. Images of light kept swimming feverishly before his eyes. "I think it's going to be a long walk," said Steve, handing him a water bottle.  
"How many of these do you have?" asked Arix, drinking thirstily.  
"That's a good point. Five—counting that one. We should be careful." Five? Where was he keeping them? Arix hadn't felt anything like a carrying sack in hours of grabbing, leaning on and crashing into Steve. Had to be there, though, over the other shoulder. But the fact that he hadn't seen or felt it in all this time—and hadn't heard bottles clinking, either—nagged at his mind. Maybe he was imagining Steve as well. Maybe he really was just following the ghost images in his head. He put out his hand and gripped Steve's right shoulder. Steve made an inquisitive sound. Arix quietly tried not to have a hysterical fit. There was no carry strap on this shoulder either. HOW WAS HE TRANSPORTING FIVE BOTTLES OF WATER? "You OK?" said Steve.  
"Yeah. Fine. What's the plan?" somehow he just couldn't ask him about it.  
"Keep walking. Don't die. Find an outlet. If we run into something nasty I'll take care of it. It we get separated, just find a relatively safe place and try not to move. I'll come find you." he sighed. "I miss the sky."  
"Me, too." Steve pulled him into another of those gently smothering hugs and leaned his head against Arix's.  
"It's going to be fine. It is. We'll get out this time, I promise you, I promise." he sounded a bit deranged, which wasn't surprising. And the fact that he'd promised to get out _this time_ , as if he never had before, was worrying. But none of that bothered Arix as much as the fact that he was squished firmly against Steve and still couldn't figure out where he was carrying his supplies. From then on he was desperate for light, not only for its own sake but because he wanted to see his shadowy helper.

They agreed to talk quietly as they walked along. Neither said it, but both were beginning to feel their sanity fray. Arix talked of his life in and outside of the walls of Nowa. Long scavenging trips there was always a chance he wouldn't return from, parties with friends when he did return, haggling with buyers over whatever he'd managed to pick up. He spent five minutes describing his favorite food, which Steve hadn't heard of. Steve didn't talk about his own life. He seemed shy. He told one story, a memory that had come back to him vividly in the darkness. He was riding with his friend when they noticed some stones had fallen from the wall. Steve wondered if it was low enough to jump, and his friend, being a reckless type, took it at a gallop. Fortunately it was low enough and they landed in the fields outside. A moment later he heard his friend screaming for him to join him. Steve followed, barely registering his surprise that he'd made the jump—his horse was a decrepit old nag which tended to refuse any jump that it personally considered too high. Three zombies, mounted on decaying horses, stood eyeing them blankly over the grass. One was raising a bow. "I've got the archer!" his friend shouted, but Steve had a head start, since his horse hadn't stopped. The arrow point turned towards him. He felt a panicked satisfaction that he wouldn't have to worry about his friend's safety and raised his sword protectively. Three full strides of his horse until he met the zombie, and he seemed to be travelling down a tunnel, nothing in it but himself and the archer. He was acutely aware of his surroundings, the morning sky, the mist straying through the woods and the way the grass flashed with dew as he flew over it. The arrow released and whizzed through the air, barely missing his ear. The archer was reaching for another when Steve flew past, hacking off an arm on his way. He turned and found the helpless archer holding him in a calmly malevolent stare as his friend fought the other two. When everything was dead they repaired the wall, and before night they burned the bodies. "It's weird that I keep thinking about the grass. It was so pretty in the light." Arix agreed, suddenly homesick for rain, of all things. But then as they walked he realized that Steve's story didn't fit anything he knew about the world of humans. The walls of Nowa hadn't been in such poor condition, or so small that a few stones lost from the top would allow horses to jump them, in a thousand years, if rumor was true. The smaller city-states had simple stone walls, but the last of them had fallen hundreds of years ago.


	5. Haunter of the Dark

Arix tried to keep talking. He wished they could have a conversation, but Steve tended to agree with everything, or simply encourage him to continue. "We should find something we disagree on, so we can have an argument."  
"Magic," said Steve promptly.  
"Magic? What about it?"  
"You obviously trust it, I don't.-There's something down there," he said, backing up. They went down another tunnel. They were still being forced downwards, and had only managed to regain a few blocks of height. Arix tried not to think about it and to keep talking.  
"Why not?"  
"Well, who's chasing us? Not the most encouraging sight—have you seen what he looks like? It's destroyed him."  
"Well, I mean, if you misuse anything—"  
"Careful. There's a hole here." Arix tightened his grip on Steve's shoulder. He still saw nothing but a chill draft blew past his face from the floor. "That's true. But he's not my only reason. You're a mage?"  
"Yeah. Well, sort of a shit one. But yeah. Kinda."  
"You may know. Who is Azathoth?"  
"Key of Magic."  
"Nuclear Chaos. Who told you?"  
"I heard someone mention it, I don't really know what it means."  
"It means you wear his mark on your remaining wrist." there was a sigil tattooed onto Arix's left wrist. Steve had probably seen it while he was unconscious.  
"That has nothing to do with Azathoth."  
"No, I've researched this. It's the mark of Azathoth. Tell me what it does."  
"It helps to channel power."  
"The Key of Magic."  
"I'm starting to see how that would line up."  
"What do you know about Azathoth?"  
"Just what I've heard. Not much for certain."  
"He's the eldest and the maddest of the mad outer gods, which makes him king, as far as any of them can acknowledge kingship. He's called the blind idiot god, centered on the chaos of the universe. Some people say his court is the center of all reality. I refuse to believe that."  
"Why?" said Arix. In their situation, he felt it to be a particularly valid question.  
"Because despite everything, there's still too much good in the world."  
"It could be an accident."  
Steve was quiet for a while. "Maybe it is. Maybe we're what's wrong when we see beauty in the world. When we think we're entitled to a little more life, a little more sunlight. I've seen people do terrible things just to live a few days longer. What is man but dust sculpted with water, standing still for a few moments to look at the earth through new eyes."  
"That sounded vaguely religious."  
"I'd like to believe in a God other than the Nuclear Chaos. Even if he is our own center."  
"In which case it's pretty hopeless. Do you mean Notch?"  
"I have a theory about that, actually. Notch and the Creator were two separate entities. Notch himself may only have been a man with great power, but over the years hero worship and a tendency to simplify things combined the man with the God. So now we call the creator Notch."  
"You're saying Notch is not God?" Arix smiled. "I should take you to Nowa. It would be an interesting sight—no, now that I think of it, you should meet Red."  
"Who's Red?"  
"Redern, I just call him Red. A priest friend of mine. At least, I think he's a priest still. He lost the rest of his temple when they got caught up in the Purge. You may have heard of them." Steve made a sound indicating he hadn't, but Arix didn't feel like relating the story. The present subject matter was dark enough. "They followed the old form. Red's got this crazy obsession with history. Once he figured out that nobody was interested in tracking him down and killing him he started spending all his time in the libraries, nosing through old manuscripts. I think you two would like each other."  
"I'd love to meet him. Wait—go back, the other way."  
"Zombie?"  
"And two creepers, I think." they didn't speak again until they had put a satisfying distance between themselves and the combustible walking vegetables.  
"Tell me about this theory of yours," said Arix. That got Steve talking about horribly intellectual stuff, and Arix found his mind wandering. He's just as bad as Red, he thought, the two of them really ought to get together. But I'd rather not be in the room when it happens. My ears would fall off. Steve was telling him about an underground stronghold where he'd discovered a library of books in the dead Laorian, which was actually interesting, but he couldn't force himself to listen. He felt a tug on his mind, gentle and vague but persistent.  
"I've translated two of them," said Steve. Arix felt the words flow past without comprehending them. They walked past an opening in the darkness and a current of air flowed around them. Arix let go. "—working on vocabulary, too," said Steve, pausing and waiting for him. He heard shuffling steps from the opening they had passed. "Arix?" Arix was walking quickly through the darkness, his heart pounding. Steve ran up behind him and grabbed his shoulders. "Arix we're not going this way! It stinks of magic!" Arix drove his remaining elbow into Steve's stomach and kept walking. Yes. He could feel it. He was coming. Suddenly a thick arm was wrapped around his throat and another was around his waist, pulling him backwards. He struggled. "Arix, stop it! Come back! It's him again, you don't want to go this way!" with a horrifying clarity Arix suddenly realized that he was right. Or might be. He really did want to go this way. Or did he? Well, it's not like he could choose. But yes he could. That voice was lying. Or was it? He didn't really believe it was lying, did he? Arix gritted his teeth as his mind went to pieces and all the pieces fought. He'd never imagined such exquisite agony. Through it all went that magnetic tug down the dark passage in front of him. And Steve was still pulling him backwards. "Just hang on," he said, "Please." suddenly he let got with a sharp cry. Arix heard a zombie growling and another hissing in pain. His feet moved him down the passage. Nope, not going that way. He let himself fall forwards and lay on the ground. The darkness spun around him. Now the broken pieces of his mind had stopped fighting among themselves and were all mocking him. He could almost hear the words. They were in another language, alien and filled with hate. After a moment he thought he could understand them. Something about Azathoth. No. Yes? "Arix!" Steve scooped him up. He smelled of blood and freshly killed zombie. There was some strange whistling piping through the air. Arix thought it was part of the chant until he saw the white light flickering down the passage. Steve ran. He didn't stop for a long time. Arix lay listening to the chant, almost distracted from the throbbing pain in his body.

Steve finally sank down against a wall, cradling Arix, who at least wasn't hearing alien voices anymore. "That was him, wasn't it?" Arix asked quietly and felt Steve nod.  
"He could tell where you were then. I don't know how." Steve was shaking. Arix didn't think it was from fatigue.  
"Are you afraid of him?" Steve twitched.  
"Yes." he bent his head and the twitching intensified. After a while Arix caught the sound of muffled sobbing. Steve began rocking back and forth.  
"Then Steve, what the hell are you doing down here?" Steve didn't answer but pulled his head down to his chest and kept rocking the two of them.  
"I'm going to get you out of here, I will, I promise."  
"Have you ever found your way out before?"  
"No."

 **A/N: I hope you don't mind your Minecraft with a side of Lovecraft. The longer story this will eventually tie in to is a crossover with Cthulhu Mythos. Thus the Azathoth cameo. (Azathoth according to Lovecraft is the Demon Sultan, Blind Idiot God, Nuclear Chaos. I made up Key of Magic for my own purposes but it was inspired by a passage in Haunter of the Dark.)**


	6. Buried Alive

It took Steve a long time to recover, and Arix, who still felt strangely shattered, wasn't going to be any help. Gradually Steve relaxed until he was breathing normally. "Arix. Are you alright?"  
"I'm not hurt."  
"Good. Other than that, how are you?"  
"Uh. Weird. That was weird. Hey, I'm sorry about that, I don't know what happened." Steve took a deep breath.  
"Magic. Never did trust it," he chuckled. "We should move on." he stood and set Arix gently on his feet. Arix realized that the left side of his body was soaked in blood. He touched Steve's shirt.  
"Oh, God."  
"I'll be fine."  
"You will not! There's no way you'll be "fine" with this much blood loss! Where did they get you?"  
"Let's keep walking."

Steve walked more slowly, despite his continued insistence that he was "fine." Arix for his part had stopped having flashes of memory from the surface world. At first he considered this to be good, but as time went on he realized that he had trouble remembering his life before entering the labyrinth, even intentionally. It seemed he had always been here, walking in the dark, and always would be. He tried unsuccessfully to shake off the feeling. The nattering, fragmented sensation came back. An army in his head was mocking him. And there was that pull again, now and then half-forming into words.

 **Blood**

 **Come back, friend**

 **Give me**

 **Give in**

 **C'nfthgha'th**

 **Your blood**

He kept walking, trying to focus on his surroundings. Even that was difficult. It was becoming so that nothing was real except the cacophony in his head. The sigil on his wrist stung, and he scratched it against his shirt. Steve stopped. "I can't do this. I don't think we're near a ward, I need some light. Let's just hope he doesn't find us." Arix faced him eagerly. He too was desperate for light. He waited for sounds of flint and steel. Instead there was a faint pop and a lit torch appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. But then, he was blind in the dark, so he wouldn't know. It made him glad to see the orange flames. And now he would see Steve. Behind the flames, bathed in an orange glow, was a crouching body in dark blue pants and light shirt. Scuffed grey boots, brown arms. The shirtfront was torn to shreds and soaked in blood. Arix looked at his face. His eyes were black, but as he looked the black holes shivered and grew smaller, leaving a ring of dark blue. He'd never been so close to a void-eyed person before in dramatic light change and this would have startled him if he hadn't been too busy looking at the rest of his face. He would have called it a kind face in other circumstances. He looked a bit wild, but probably so did Arix. But there was something about his face itself. He looked like Herobrine. He looked almost _exactly_ like Herobrine. His hair was short and he was void-eyed, but those were the only significant differences. Before he could fully understand why, Arix was running, leaving the torchlight behind. He heard Steve shouting, but he was slowed by his injuries, and Arix was running on pure terror. He crashed into a wall, turned and kept going. His balance was shot but he managed to keep sprinting forwards. "Arix! I'm not going to hurt you! You're going to get yourself killed. Arix!" part of his mind realized that this was insanity, and differentiated that Steve looked _almost_ exactly like Herobrine, but he kept running. Suddenly he was running on air. He was falling for long enough for his stomach to turn upside-down in the air, then he crashed onto a rocky floor and fell on his face. A moment later he was up and running again. Something growled and swiped at him as he rushed past, and he smelled the stench of rotten flesh. There was a thud from behind him, followed by zombie noises and a sound of hacking. Arix kept running. He felt the twanging feeling again, like he'd run through a spiderweb. Then another. Suddenly the passage erupted under his feet and he was flung forward. Rubble crashed around him. Very faintly, he could hear Steve shouting from behind him. The torchlight grew brighter. By the time Steve reached him, working his way over a mound of rubble that choked the passage, he was breathing again. Steve dragged him over to the wall and started chucking rocks at him. Arix scrambled up. "Lie down! And if you want to live, keep quiet." Steve threw him down and feverishly buried him under stones, placing them carefully enough that they wouldn't crush him, although he wasn't anywhere near comfortable. Finally he leaned a large slab of rock against the wall, hiding him, but also pinning him so that he could barely move. Then he looked over his work and nodded at Arix. "I'll come back. Just don't move and don't make any sound." There was a whistling scream through the air.

When Herobrine appeared, a dusty, bloodied Steve was crawling out of the rubble. He looked sheepishly at him. "You _again_?" said Herobrine, crossing his arms. Steve nodded. Herobrine's eyes glinted. "Well, then. This is going to be fun."


	7. Inhuman

"You're getting the hang of it. You got pretty far in this time. Why do you keep attempting it, though?" said Herobrine. Steve gestured helplessly. He was trembling. Herobrine eyed him up and down and sighed. "Idiot. Well, maybe you can help me. Did you see a one-armed semi-competent imitation mage running around? Because I've lost one." Steve looked curiously at him. "I thought he might have been eaten by now, but I still feel his power. Not that there's much to speak of. Still. It might be worth using." he walked closer to Steve, smirking. "What are you thinking, little ball of terror?"  
"You're actually talking to me?" said Steve. Herobrine quirked an eyebrow.  
"Well yes. Clearly."  
"I'm thinking it's nice, you know, that we're having a conversation for once. Because usually I would be dead by now."  
"You do seem to die a lot, yes, now that you mention it. Will you help me?"  
"No."  
"Of course not. You'd probably run up to him like "dude! Herbrine's looking for you, run!" and that would not be helpful at all." Herobrine casually warped forwards, carrying Steve with him and slamming him into the wall. Several pieces of ceiling crashed down. "Wouldn't you?" said Herobrine, holding Steve at arm's length against the wall. Steve touched his shoulder.

"Why are you touching me?"  
"Is it all gone? I mean—do you not remember anything? Or do you just choose to forget? Because I can't help remembering—" Herobrine spun, flinging him into the middle of the passage, and warped forwards again. When he stopped moving he'd punched half of his arm though Steve's chest. Steve collapsed and his body dissolved into white smoke. Even the blood coating Herobrine's arm paled and drifted away. Where Steve had been, flickering ghost images of objects danced above the floor. Herobrine walked over and looked at them, and one by one they snapped into focus and then disappeared with a popping sound. Then there was a flash of white, a shriek, and the hallway was empty except for the rubble and a few drifting flakes of light where Herobrine had disappeared.

Arix kicked the rocks off of his legs. He could breathe, barely. He was afraid that if he tried to shift the large slab of rock leaning over him it would fall on him. And it was too heavy anyway, as he discovered after a few careful shoves. He lay and rested for a while. Steve had saved him. Of course, he had left him pinned under a rock to either starve to death or have his legs chewed off by zombies, but he had saved him. Arix lay still and considered his options. He could just move his hand, but he didn't know of any magic that would help him move a rock, and there was still the problem of Herobrine. He thought of the dynamite in his pack and chuckled. Yeah, that would move the rock alright. It'd also plaster his guts across what was left of the ceiling. Might cave the whole passage in. That would be an interesting way to go. He decided to try setting it off, if he was bitten, as a last resort. It would be better than slowly succumbing to the corruption. What he really wanted was light. He couldn't think of any way to light a fire in this position. He settled into a more comfortable position, fitting his body into the curves of the floor, and let himself fall asleep. Maybe I won't wake up, he thought with a faint hope as he faded away. That would be easy. It probably wouldn't work like that.

It didn't, quite. For what felt like a long time he faded in and out of consciousness. He heard monster noises, but none came near him. He grew cold. He fell into a kind of shivering trance where he was aware only of how cold he was. He almost wasn't aware of the stone rolling away, but he couldn't ignore the glow of light in the passage. Light. Warmth. Something turned him onto his back and he looked up into black discs rimmed in deep blue. "Arix. You're alive." Arix blinked up at Steve in the dim light.  
"Er… you're surprised about _me_ being alive?" Steve half-smiled.  
"Ah. What did you see?" that was the question. He couldn't remember very well.  
"You disappeared."  
"I did."  
"So—what are you doing here?"  
"Finishing this." with one hand he pulled Arix up, holding a small, glowing object in the other. "We're not stopping until we get out. Agreed?" he looked at Arix, who was beginning to feel more alive.  
"Agreed. But how'd you do it?" Steve looked down at the small glowing thing in his hand. His wounds had disappeared, even his shirt was no longer ripped or bloodstained, but he was soaked in sweat and looked desperately exhausted.  
"That will be a good story to tell as we walk. Short answer, I'm not human."  
"You look human."  
"I was, at one point. No humans are immortal. I'm—something else. I'm still not sure what. Other than an anthropomorphic freak, of course." he smiled at Arix. "I hope you don't mind trusting an anthropomorphic freak with your life."  
"You're more like an angel." Steve snorted.  
"Well. Thank you? I hope you haven't suffered brain damage." Arix reached for the glowing object and turned it over in his hand. It was a small lantern charm on a chain, but the inset of the lantern glowed softly, with a warm, golden light. "Glowstone," said Steve. "It's always with me. I used to be afraid of the dark, this was a present from a friend." he slipped the charm back into his pocket and they were once again in the dark. They began walking.

 **A/N: The glowstone charm being on Steve at this point indicates that it respawns with him, along with his clothes. Which means that if it's somewhere else and he gets killed, it'll disappear from wherever it was and reappear on the respawned Steve.**


	8. The Fallen Cities

Several lifetimes ago there were two friends, half-brothers, who defended their minor city-state from the corruption together. Both were scholars, but the younger was interested in history, and the elder in magic. He discovered that he was descended from a long line of magicians and alchemists, and that only in the last few generations had his family lost the knack for magic. His brother wasn't interested in learning magic, although the elder thought that he had a propensity for it, so the elder took it upon himself to relearn the lost wisdom of his line and expand upon it. Meanwhile the corruption spread and one by one cities fell. Their own was at risk due to long years of neglect, the walls and gate were in disrepair and the brothers sometimes spent all night killing the zombies which had gotten into the village and were banging on doors. Finally the city had dwindled so far that it could not continue as an independent state, and the survivors scattered to other cities. The brothers joined the Guard in Beltenebris, the largest of the surviving states, a seaport and mining center afflicted with constant waves of zombies from the huge cave systems beneath the city which had never been fully explored and lit. The elder brother knew that the two of them were unlikely to live to middle age without either being killed or taken over by the corruption. He hated the world that had given him such pain, and he devoted himself to the study of alchemy with all the power of his hate. One of his ancestors believed that he had discovered a potion of immortality, but he hadn't taken it himself, and had chosen instead to live to old age and finally die with his family around him. The elder brother considered this man a fool and set about making the potion. It took him years, but he succeeded. Beltenebris was beginning to crumble, and he gave the first portion to his brother without telling him what it was. The brother, horrified at finding out the truth, tried to prevent him from taking his own portion and they fought. Months later Beltenebris lay in ruins, deserted except for the undead. Two new immortals left the city and went their separate ways, enemies forever. The elder brother held a lasting grudge, and the younger avoided him in fear. (Steve did not mention what had happened in the months before leaving Beltenebris, and Arix didn't ask, getting the impression that he didn't want to talk about it.) Their names were Herobrine and Steve.  
"How long ago was that?"  
"I don't know. Two hundred years?"  
"So, you used to be friends."  
"That was a long time ago. He's become something different from the brother I knew once. Thought I knew…" they walked in silence for a while.  
"So, when you die, you come back to life again?"  
"I return to the last place I slept. Fortunately I had napped in the caves not far back, so I was able to find my way to where I left you. I was afraid I wouldn't and you would die, trapped there."  
"Hey, I would have died anyway. Much sooner if I hadn't met you. Any side effects?" like magical transportation of items which you don't have the physical capacity to carry? Apparently yes. Steve's description of his talents was vague and confusing, as he said he didn't fully understand it himself. He seemed to have gained a startling knack for building and mining. And yes, carrying things without using his hands. He flatly denied having any idea of how that worked and said he'd given up trying to understand it. "Magic?" said Arix hopefully. "You said you had a propensity for it. Maybe it's a spell you cast subconsciously." Steve shrugged.  
"I don't believe so. But on that subject, I drop everything when I die."  
"I think I saw that."  
"Did Herobrine steal my stuff?"  
"Yep."  
"Jerk."  
"So, you've lost all your supplies."  
"Yep. What do you have?"  
"Er… some truly ancient bread that I date to the Golden Era at least, a pair of gloves, a pickaxe, a sword, some dynamite, some dried meat and one bottle of water. I left everything else with my horse."  
"It could be worse."  
"No, wait. I already drank the water."  
"OK, it's slightly worse."  
"I knew I should have brought more." Steve reached back and patted him.  
"It's fine."  
"I've noticed you say that a lot." Steve wrapped an arm around him.  
"It is going to be fine," he said sternly. Arix laughed, an empty brittle sound like leaves in an abandoned courtyard.  
"Well good." he shook his head, trying to order his thoughts.  
"…Arix?" said Steve, perhaps hearing something wrong in his voice. Arix's fingernails dug into his arm.  
"Hold me." a moment later he was struggling furiously to pull away from Steve and run into the darkness. Steve held him as gently as he was able until he stopped struggling, then carried him quickly in the opposite direction.  
"Arix," he said, and got no response. He heard a muffled scream from behind and walked faster.

Arix woke up to the sound of a heart pounding. Steve was wedged into a narrow crevice with him, and he could hear the dry, almost musical clicking of a skeleton's walk from nearby. It paused nearby, but then kept walking, eventually passing out of his hearing. "I'm better," said Arix. Steve placed his hand on his head and then set him on his feet.  
"Is it getting worse?"  
"Yeah."

Arix wasn't sure how long they kept walking after that. Sometimes Steve carried him. Herobrine's influence was a constant pull now that confused his mind. He started seeing ghost lights again, but no longer pictures of the surface world, only hazy swimming blurs in his tired eyes. At one point he realized that his throat was growing dry and that it must have been a long time. Then, to his surprise, he felt Steve actually stumble.  
"I think we could both use a few hours of sleep," he said. "It's… really awful, coming back. It _hurts_. And I'm tired. We need to sleep." here? Thought Arix, but didn't speak. "Can I borrow your pickaxe?" Arix silently fumbled with his pack. It was harder with one arm. Steve walked around him and pulled out the pickaxe. There was an unobtrusive click from behind them. Steve dropped the pickaxe and spun. There was a whiz and a thud, and Steve crashed backwards into Arix, who fell. There was another whiz and the sound of something ricocheting from rock. Then a clattering, tearing sound.  
"Steve?" he said, and Steve grunted. Something landed near Arix's hand, and he picked it curiously. It felt like a few neck vertebrae.  
"Skeletons. Scary from a distance, but they don't hold up well." he took the pickaxe and Arix heard a few precise strokes to the wall, and more of those odd popping noises. Steve pulled him to the wall and guided his hand to a low niche that had appeared. "You crawl in first." Arix lay on his back and wormed his way in. The niche went a good ways back, but it was low enough that it wouldn't be easily seen from the corridor. He reached a wall and lay still. The corners of the place were perfect right angles. He tried to understand it and gave up. Steve was doing something outside which involved a lot of coughing and what sounded like a gush of blood. When he wriggled into the niche he formed a barrier between Arix and the corridor. Arix reached out and touched his freshly blood-soaked shirt.  
"Why are you doing this?" Steve seemed to be struggling to breathe.  
"You can die," he said.  
"So can you."  
"You know what I mean."  
"You said it was painful." a gasp that might have been an attempt at laughter.  
"I'm neighbors with Herobrine. I'm getting used to pain."

 **A/N: Steve's totally chill with losing his sword, apparently. Like "dangit that's inconvenient. Well I'll just rip this skeleton apart with my bare hands, shouldn't be a problem."**


	9. Claimed

"Ready to move on?"

Arix nodded and felt Steve's warmth move away from him. He was cold and his throat was dry. He didn't think he had slept in the several hours they'd been there, although he nearly had at one point, and then… he hadn't dared go back to sleep afterwards. Steve pulled him to his feet as he wormed out of the niche. Steve was breathing almost normally now and the blood on his shirt had dried. Some of it had dried onto Arix, who was caked with dried blood, some his own and some Steve's. Any nearby zombies would be drawn to the smell of blood. Steve picked a direction and started walking, and Arix followed, trying to forget his dream. If it had been a dream. It hadn't seemed like a dream, there was no imagery. He'd been lying in the darkness and as he slipped closer to oblivion he felt Herobrine's pull on him growing stronger. Again the fragmented, nattering feeling, like his own mind was trying to tear him to pieces. Herobrine was there. When Steve shifted his weight and Arix woke he didn't want to go back to sleep. Now as they walked forwards he felt that he had learned something. Something maddeningly incomprehensible, sitting darkly in his mind, waiting for the time he would need it.

It was growing hard to walk. His pain was now an aching constant, but that wasn't what kept making him stumble. It was the voices.

"Arix?" said Steve, and a hand caught his good arm. He realized he'd been wandering off into a new passage.  
"I'm alright."  
"Are you sure?" he meant, are you going to lose control again or are you just going crazy? Crazy or crazy?  
"I can't focus." there was nothing he could fix his eyes on. He couldn't see anything except the ghost lights swimming in his peripheral vision, and he felt that constant tug… There was a golden glow, faint by his normal standards, but in the total darkness it was piercingly bright. The lantern charm shone like liquid gold in Steve's hand.  
"Hold this. I think we can risk a little light." Arix was already looking past Steve, at the wall. The wall had eyes. And teeth. Steve turned, following his gaze, and took a step back. The stone around the opening to the passage Arix had been heading for was chipped into a rough carving of some enormous beast with tentacles that wrapped around the opening and a hundred crazed eyes. Afterwards, Arix wasn't sure how such a rough approximation of eyes could look crazed, or how they could glitter in the dark, although chipped from unpolished stone. Maybe he was seeing things. Steve pulled him away, down the passage. "Hide the light." there was a shriek from close behind them. Steve picked him up and began running.

Arix clutched the light to his chest, hiding it. For a moment as they ran he could see the ceiling above him in a flicker of white light, then Steve turned and it was gone. He felt no fear. He felt that it was his destiny to stay forever in these caves. He had been claimed, and he would never see the sun.

"Arix." Steve's chest was heaving as he set him carefully on his feet. "That was close. We should keep moving." Arix looked down at the pink glow where the light bled between his fingers. It brought him back to himself. Somewhat. He shook his head. He was fine. Really. They moved forwards.

 **Claimed.**

Arix stumbled, half-opened his hand, and a gleam of light struck him in the face. He opened his hand and let the lantern charm dangle from its chain. It dimly illuminated his body: long, thin, clothes darkened with blood, and now weirdly lopsided. He lifted it slightly and looked at the walls. Stone. Blank stone. Just an ordinary cave wall. Caves had outlets. He'd be gone soon.

 **Claimed.**

"Arix?" Steve was waiting. Arix walked forwards, gathering the lantern into his hand. It might be all the light he would ever have.

Steve was trying not to show his despair. He didn't know how long they'd been wandering, but they were getting nowhere. It was a miracle he hadn't lost Arix yet. That was something. But it wouldn't last. The light worried him, but it also cheered him, and he was willing to risk it for the moment. They reached a place where the passage opened out, disappearing into darkness. Steve strained his eyes and discerned several branching paths in the distance. He wanted to scream. Even a dead end would have been better than this, he felt. Tunnels and tunnels forever, was the whole world full of this labyrinth? He took a deep breath and smiled at himself. How foolish to scream over a little variety. He should be glad. He only had to choose one of the gaping holes over another. He walked between them, sniffing the air, trying to judge drafts. No good. There wasn't a hint of fresh air from any of them. The light hadn't followed him. He turned to look for Arix, suddenly worried. Arix was staring down at his hand. He walked towards him, calling for him. Arix looked up. His eyes were wild and his jaw was set. "We need to cut it out."  
"What?"

They had stopped walking for a moment, and Arix was glad. He looked down at the light in his hand, but his gaze drifted to the black mark on his wrist. He stared at it. Pieces fit together in his head. Suddenly he understood. "Arix?" Steve was coming towards him.  
"We need to cut it out," said Arix. Steve paused and looked curiously at him. Arix realized that he couldn't point and instead stretched out his arm, showing the mark on his wrist. "Er," said Steve, "I don't think that would do anything. Except make you lose even more blood."  
"No, it will."  
"Why?" that was the thing. He couldn't describe why he knew it would work, not even to himself. But he was going to try. He didn't exactly have any other ideas.  
"We have to try."  
"Arix. The mark isn't… it's part of you, alright? It's not something you can just cut off."  
"Oh, yes, it is." Steve came closer and looked at him, brow wrinkled.  
"…Alright. If you have enough resolve, there's a chance it will work. But why do you think it will help us?" Arix shrugged weakly.  
"Will you help me?" Steve hesitated. Arix looked at him, and he looked away, scratching his neck. Dammit. He thinks I'm insane. He might be right.  
"Have you thought this over?" he wasn't thinking at all at this stage. But he knew that he had to try. And he knew that he'd see the attempt through.  
"Yes." Steve chewed on a nail, looking doubtfully at him. He was probably trying to decide what would be the best way to tie him up now that he'd clearly lost it.  
"Do you have a knife?" he said finally, and Arix gave a twitchy smile in relief.  
"Yes."


	10. Excision

Steve insisted on picking one of the passages and getting a short way down it before they tried any surgery. He didn't want zombies pouring down on them when they smelled the fresh blood. He kept asking if Arix was sure he wanted to do this and what had made him decide on it. Arix didn't know. He still felt that maddening tug at his mind and he wanted it gone. He was able to come up with some sort of justification, although he felt surprised to hear himself saying the words. "You were right, it's how I channel power. Maybe if I cut it off he won't be able to find me through my amulet anymore."  
"It'll affect your abilities as a mage. I can't guess exactly how."  
"I don't really care at this point. If I weren't already missing an arm I'd consider just cutting that hand off above the mark."  
"Now that certainly won't be necessary." Steve looked around. "I'll go a bit farther down and make sure there isn't anything that needs to be killed before we do this. Rest here. Keep your sword out." Steve set off at a fast walk. Arix exhaled and hung his head. He wanted to sit, but everything hurt when he moved, and it was just less effort to remain standing.

Only at some point he realized that he wasn't standing, he was walking quickly back the way he'd come, his mind buzzing around him.

Oh not this again. Stop.

He kept walking.

Arix this is ridiculous. You know you don't want to leave and you don't want to go see the creepy carving thing with the teeth and you don't want anything to do with fucking Herobrine. Stop.

He didn't stop.

Arix. Really. You know that you don't want to do this. Just stop.

He was walking quickly, at a pace that made his tired muscles burn, swaying slightly. And he wasn't stopping. "Fuck you legs," he said out loud. That did no more than his mental scolding. He intentionally lost his balance and let himself fall on his face with a thump that drove the air out of his lungs and set all his injuries throbbing at a new intensity. Well. It was nice, having a chance to lie down and rest, and he was able to resist the urge to jump up and start running. He focused on the smooth floor against his cheek and how good it felt not to be moving, or it would, when he stopped having so much pain. He set the lantern in front of him and looked at the warm glow. He scratched his burning wrist against the stone.  
"Arix!" oh, he'd almost forgotten Steve. He sounded a bit panicked at seeing him on the ground but he didn't feel like moving to reassure him. Steve reached him and lifted him up. "Are you alright?"  
"Yeah. Are we good now?" Steve nodded.  
"You're sure you want me to do this?" Arix almost said that he didn't need to do it, he just had to hold the light, then he realized that Steve had to. He couldn't possibly do it himself… well, he could, but it would be very messy. He'd like to keep one usable hand.  
"Please." he held out his hand. Steve looked critically at it for a moment, then sat and placed Arix's hand on his knee.  
"Where's that knife?" he fished it out and handed it to him. Steve examined it carefully. It wasn't the sharpest edge ever, but it would work. "My hands aren't very clean."  
"Just cut it off."  
"How clean is the knife?" Arix shrugged.  
"I rinse it off after I'm done cutting bread with it. Usually."  
"You do realize what a terrible idea this is, right?"  
"Yep. Just do it."  
"I'm assuming you have bandages?... Why don't you just let me look through your stuff?" Arix happily shoved his pack over, tired of pawing through it with one hand. Steve laid out some strips of clean cloth and tested the knife blade again. "Alright, I think that's as ready as we're going to be." he laid the edge of the knife against Arix's wrist. Then he lifted it.  
"Are you sure?"  
"Steve!"  
"Alright." he cut down. He had to saw a little with the knife to get anywhere. Arix watched in fascination as he peeled back the stained layer of skin. "Alright," he said with obvious relief, flinging it to the side. Arix looked down at his wrist. The layer of flesh below the skin was stained in the shape of the mark. "Er," said Steve. Arix offered his wrist.  
"Keep cutting."  
"I don't—"  
"Keep cutting. I don't care if you mess up my hand, I want it gone."  
"Arix, I don't think this is working."  
"Just do it." Steve clenched his teeth.  
"Alright." Arix watched the knife.  
"I wish I had lost this arm instead," he said to himself. "Red was right."

For what seemed like a long time, Steve carefully sliced at his wrist, and Arix muttered any words of banishment he could remember, willing the mark to be gone and hoping it would help. Finally Steve wiped the raw mess with one of the pieces of bandage cloth and sat back with a sigh. "It looks clean." Arix examined the mess. The mark was gone. And he could still move his fingers. He tested the sensation in different parts of his hand. There didn't seem to be any permanent damage to his hand. It had turned out surprisingly well. Steve bandaged the wound carefully, but blood still soaked through to the outer layer. Arix felt drained but he thought his mind was clearer. Steve helped him up and they kept walking. "How do you feel?"  
"Painful? It's hard to tell yet."  
"I hope this was a good idea." well, if anything, he had tried. And he did feel different, he thought, although he already felt so strange it was hard to tell.  
"Steve."  
"Mm?"  
"Thank you."


	11. Silence

Herobrine looked up from his book. Something had changed.

The amulet was hung over a handsome brass scale on his desk. He picked it up and hefted it in his palm. He could no longer detect Arix's power. That was it. The human had disappeared—he must have been picked off by a monster. Or fallen down a hole, or been trapped in gushing lava when he tried to open up a new pathway. There were any number of ways to die in the dark. Pity, almost. He'd been fairly smart—enough to evade him for this whole time. He had been looking forwards to a satisfying and perhaps useful death for the man. Well, there were plenty of humans in the world. Their numbers were dwindling, but there were still more than Herobrine fancied sharing a world with although he admitted it was convenient if he needed a sacrifice. In that way he was prepared to view the Corruption as an ally.

Funny. Once he hadn't been able to stand the idea that the human race was dying. Once he had had nothing but raging, irrational hate for the Corruption. But then, he had once been human. He'd been one of the damned. But he had long ago risen above that. He had only faint memories of that time, and, as they were no longer of use to him, he didn't think of them.

Well. So much for him. Where was Steve? Herobrine narrowed his eyes, focusing.

 _He was walking through a dark tunnel, feeling his way with one hand, eyes nearly black in the dark._

He was still there? He must have reset his spawn point somewhere in the caves. Idiot.

 _He stopped and looked back when his companion lagged. Arix was leaning against the wall._

 _Arix._

 _ARIX WAS STILL ALIVE. WHAT._

Herobrine sat up in shock. What was going on? He jumped up and paced back and forth, tossing the useless amulet from hand to hand. They had nearly tricked him. Well. Good for them, but he wasn't nearly that blind.

"I can carry you."  
"No."  
"I really don't mind."  
"Let's not talk, my throat is dry."

Arix had underestimated just how draining it had been to remove the mark. Either that or being unable to sleep was catching up to him. Steve had stopped to nap, and Arix had had a chance to examine his mind in the darkness. The relentless tug of Herobrine's influence was gone, but that didn't make him feel any safer. If anything, his mind, which had been dulled before, was spinning out of control. At some point he began shaking. He only noticed it when the back of his head smacked into the floor. He tried to keep still. It gave him something to do, while he was lying there, unable to sleep. At some point he failed badly enough to wake Steve up. Naturally he was concerned. Naturally he couldn't really do anything. He rolled over and held Arix, keeping his head off the floor. Eventually he relaxed, and Steve went back to sleep. Arix lay waiting, watching the darkness in front of him, wincing at the occasional twitch in his muscles. At last they had moved on.

He wasn't sure how long he could do this. It hurt to move. Not just from his wounds, but a constant aching burn that only came from intense fatigue. Steve was at least rested but Arix thought he was growing desperate. Neither of them really hoped that they would find a way out anymore, but neither said anything.

Arix remembered that he had left his horse with its lead tucked under a stone near the cave mouth. The area was dry, rocky, barren. He hoped it had pulled loose and found water. It wouldn't have for a long time, it was a good horse. He spent the next several hours worrying about the poor creature.

They had stopped, and Steve was tapping on the cave wall with Arix's pickaxe. "There's a natural cave behind here," said Steve. "He walled it off, but only by a little." Arix said nothing. "I think we stand more of a chance in there than in here. Want to risk it? It may not lead anywhere."  
"Yeah." Steve broke a hole in the wall and they walked through into what they immediately knew from the drift of the air to be a huge empty space.  
"Oh great," said Steve. "A ravine. I can't see the bottom. It's huge. There's a ledge here, but we'll have to step carefully. Hold on to me." they moved on. Now and then Steve had to stop and mine rock out of their way so they could keep walking in relative safety. They were relieved to turn aside when they encountered a cave branching off the ravine. A zombie greeted them with a hungry snarl and Steve snapped its neck. After a little examination the cave turned out to be a dead end, but there was the faintest trickling sound near the back. Steve pulled Arix over to a wall where a spongy cave-moss grew. There was a thin trickle of water down the wall. Steve dug a channel in the cave moss to gather the water and they both drank from it.

Arix thought he was seeing things until Steve brought it up. "Do you see a glow down there?"  
"Yeah."  
"I think it's a lava fall."  
"Really?" Arix had never seen one before, although he knew they existed, in deep caves, especially in the sides of ravines. As they worked their way closer it slowly became clear. A blazing thread of warm light flowed sluggishly down the far side of the ravine and spilled burning over the stone floor far below. It was beautiful. It occurred to Arix that there were worse deaths he could die, and without ever having seen a lava fall. But they didn't get any nearer to it because they had reached another cave. They turned aside into the deeper darkness.


	12. Paradox

The cave went far back, and it seemed to rise. Steve perked up a little. "Can you use your sword?" he asked when they heard a faint groan from ahead.  
"Not very well."  
"Maybe you should give it to me."  
"Good idea." Steve tested the balance of the blade, frowning, then held it ready. They walked forwards. Faint zombie noises came from somewhere nearby. "Wish I had some torches," muttered Steve. In the light of the lantern charm Arix could dimly see a hole in the floor. Steve inched around it on a narrow ledge of rock and turned on the other side. "Think you can make it? There are some gaps." yeah, that looked alright. He started across, hugging the wall. A growl came from below him, and he froze, clinging to a handhold. He looked down at the ledge. He couldn't see much—his eyes didn't work well in the dark. They were generic eyes, light green, with a hazed over pupil. And he didn't want to move his hand, holding the light, away from the handhold. He thought he could see where to step. He inched forwards a few steps. Good. He had it. The trick was not to let the blurry darkness scare him into freezing, and step where he knew rocks were.

Well, where he thought rocks were. Suddenly he was falling. He'd had no chance to catch himself with one arm missing and one recently eviscerated and weak. Sharp rock slammed into his back. He could hear Steve cursing wildly above him, scrabbling for a way down. And then he heard an eager growl from the darkness. He couldn't breathe, and he couldn't move. His heart was pounding wildly. He pulled with his lungs, willing to breathe. He could hear dragging steps approaching. The smallest breath of air reached his lungs. He gasped, each breath a little deeper, and turned shakily in the direction of the noises. An indistinct form that smelled of rot was reaching for him. He kicked it away, and it snarled in disgust. Its nails tore into his arm as they passed, grasping wildly. Arix struggled backwards, dizzy from losing breath, and the zombie lunged after him. He stabbed with his hand into its neck and shuddered at the way the decayed tissue tore beneath his fingers. The zombie kept bearing down on him. He held its face away and ignored the hands beating and tearing at him. Suddenly it was gone, pulled backwards. He lay gasping for breath and listening to the zombie's dying snarls. Steve came to him and dropped to one knee. "I forgot how bad your night vision is."  
"Urrgh." he picked up the glowing charm from where it had fallen and examined Arix in its light. Arix guessed at more than saw his concern. "What?"  
"We don't have any way to clean your wounds."  
"It didn't bite me, hopefully I'll be fine. I'm more worried about whether I can walk." a bite wasn't necessary for infection, although they were the most dangerous. Arix knew this. He'd survived as a scavenger for several years already. But he was trying not to think about it. Steve pulled him up and he discovered that yes he could walk. "When we get out of here I'm going to find a warm place to lie down and not move for a week."  
"I support this entirely." Arix smiled.  
"You're funny."

At what point did an object become a part of you?

Arix's amulet worked because it was tied to his magic, although apparently that wasn't foolproof. Herobrine still wasn't sure how the human had fooled him. It had to have been something drastic.

Steve was easier, because he knew him. He hated it. He hated the massive load of rotting memories with Steve in them. But he knew him. With time and effort he thought he could train himself to find him even without a stolen artifact.

Of course, it was easier this way. And also infuriating. The object respawned with him, so he was bound to it forever. He'd been holding it when he transformed so now it was effectively a part of him. It didn't decay, it didn't age. Like him. Meaning he was bound to Steve.

It was a small part of the reason he was so antagonistic towards Steve. He was literally unable to escape him, and he knew it, and it bothered him. Sometimes he just got sick and tired of Steve's existence and felt he had to go end it, at least temporarily.

He wasn't sure if Steve realized how he did it. Steve sucked at magic. He thought it was fairly obvious, but then, maybe it wasn't to his idiot brother.

He spun the wooden object on the cord around his wrist. It made a pleasant whirring noise if he spun fast enough. As far as the logistics of magic went, it counted as part of Steve, as much as if he'd stolen a lock of hair. (Blegh.) But it was also a part of him. Paradoxical, and infuriating.

Steve was worried at the moment. He spun the object, listening in through the whirr of the cords. Things were going badly. Well, surprise surprise. He'd let him get a little more desperate, he thought, then he'd pay a visit. He wanted to see this crazy human who had nearly evaded him, albeit with help, as it turned out.

He looked at the amulet on the table.

He'd like to know how on earth he'd managed to _disappear_ like that. Quite a trick. He was either much more advanced in magic than Herobrine had thought, or he'd gone and done something very stupid.

Probably the latter.

Arix was beginning to feel afraid that it was a trap, this cave only looked natural, it was part of Herobrine's labyrinth and it was going to lead them deeper and deeper forever. He was also doubting his own sanity. He hadn't had time to under Herobrine's influence, but freed from it, he realized that it had left deep scars. He had learned, too. He didn't understand what he had learned, and it terrified him, but something he'd heard as a chatter in the darkness had made him cut off the mark.

The chattering was still there, he realized with a start, faint, at the back of his head, but ready to break out. Maybe it had been there all along and Herobrine only pulled it to the front. Maybe he was not his own master.

"How are you feeling?" said Steve. Arix realized that his thoughts had distracted him from his pain.  
"Alright, I guess. I was thinking." Steve stopped and examined him.  
"Can you feel that?"  
"Feel what?" Arix swayed, and only then realized that Steve was putting pressure on his upper arm. He jerked it away and looked down at the scratches from the zombie. Numbness around the wound was one of the first signs of infection.  
"That's not a good sign," said Steve. Arix lowered his arm.  
"I'm dead."  
"No, you're not. I can fix this if we get you to my house." he looked at Arix's pickaxe. "I'd like to dig straight up through the rock but I don't think your pickaxe would hold up for long. We'd end up stranded. We're better off looking for a natural outlet.." did he just say _dig straight up through the rock?_ Yes he rejected it as a viable option, but he had considered it. This was Steve.  
"Let's keep going then," said Arix.

Now they had a time limit, aside from dehydration or starvation. In the most likely scenario, Steve would kill him. It was understood that that's what you did to a fellow human being who couldn't be saved from the corruption. He wasn't looking forward to it, but he liked it better than the alternative. He thought Steve would be a merciful killer.

 **IMPORTANT (kinda) A/N: If you read chapter 11 within the half hour after it was first uploaded you may have missed a lovely piece of brooding Herobrine psychically stalking Steve, which will have ramifications later. Because I accidentally uploaded an incomplete chapter at first and the updates sometimes take a while to go through. I'm an idiot.  
Steve actually doesn't suck at magic, he just ****_doesn't_** **. Difference, grouchy Brine. You mentioned this difference in the past. You know? Backstory? Friendship is Magic?.. Oh wait, we don't talk about that? *author is incinerated by fireball from computer screen***  
 **And yes, the artifact Herobrine uses to track Steve will show up in the backstory when I eventually publish Minecraft Mythos. I explain it in great detail there and I didn't feel like doing it again here and bogging the story down. Trollololol. Sorry.  
Anyways! Are you enjoying this? Does anyone even read the author notes? Is there anyone on FFN willing to review this story besides that spark of genius known as Convenient-Alias? I mean, I'd even take a review that says "dis dumb. :( no liek." Because yea! Reviews!**


	13. Numbness

How many days had it been? One, or two? Arix couldn't tell.

They followed the cave through twists and turns, dead ends and drops into black oblivion. Steve was able to quickly build a stone bridge over any holes in the floor—how, he had no idea. They seemed to be gradually rising, but it was hard to tell. One passage curved up and the next plunged down. There were monsters everywhere, now that they were away from the inner part of Herobrine's labyrinth. Time dragged by, and they found a spring of water in one dead end passage. They drank deeply and refilled Arix's water bottle. They rationed the water in small sips.

Arix had spells of dizziness and nausea which could have been from fatigue. Otherwise he felt as well as could be expected. Actually, he seemed to be getting his second wind, which was surprising, since he thought that he'd used up all his adrenaline. And his mind was clear at last. It was amazing how much of a difference that made. He was beginning to hope that he hadn't been infected after all.

Steve held the lantern to his face once and looked searchingly into his eyes. "What?" said Arix. Steve shook his head and they kept walking. Later, after sleeping for a few hours—and Arix did sleep, at last, but only lightly—he tried again, turning his face from side to side in his hands. "What?"  
"Mm."  
"Steve! What is it?"  
"You have beautiful eyes. They're starting to look like mine." he turned and started walking.

In other words, they were starting to darken. Is that what he meant? His night vision hadn't improved. Maybe it was just the light.

There were zombie sounds coming from the passage ahead. Many at once, not just the occasional groan of a solitary wanderer. Steve peered around the corner and then backed up. "Spawner. It's in a small cave, up above the passage. The passage looks like it's rising. If we go quickly we might get by them without being noticed."  
"Let's go." Steve looked doubtfully at Arix. Arix pulled out his knife.  
"Zombies are dumb. Let's get out of here."  
Steve nearly smiled. "You're looking better."  
"Thank you."  
"Right. On three…"  
There was an opening into the wall high on their right, lit with a faint, garish alien light. Zombies milled around inside. Steve and Arix ducked past down the passageway, out of sight of the cave, just as a snarl of pain came from behind them. One must have jumped down to the floor. Arix paused, waiting for it, knife ready. Steve picked him up and ran. "Hey!"  
"Nope nope nope. We are running—" Steve stopped. Arix looked over his shoulder. Oh great, another dead end. And this passage had even seemed to be rising.  
"We're running? Are you sure about that?"  
"You're pretty snarky when you're not half-dead, you know that?"  
"Yes. Put me down."  
"Apologies, milady."  
"I'm going to stab you."  
"Later."  
A zombie stumbled around the corner, mouth gaping open. On second glance, it didn't have a lower jaw. Steve sighed in relief and, with a popping noise, Arix's sword appeared out of nowhere in his hand. Arix ignored this. It was Steve. Weird stuff happened, and he didn't need to induce any more sanity loss by thinking about it. "Not a problem," said Steve. As if on cue, three more zombies appeared behind the first. "OK, minor problem. Stay behind me." Arix moved in front of him because fuck you everything, he was done caring. "Arix!"  
"On it." he ripped the throat out of the first zombie. Steve rushed past him and bisected the next. Things were going fairly well, in fact, until a creeper ambled around the corner behind the last zombie.  
"Arix duck!" duck? Arix suddenly thought of roast duck with spices and a nice sauce. God he was hungry. There was an ominous dry crackling sound. He looked up and saw Steve diving away from a swelling, flickering quadrupedal vegetable abomination. He ducked behind a piece of rock as a concussion shook the passage and flung him to his knees. A zombie screeched. There were some sounds of rubble settling. Luckily it didn't sound like a real cave in, and, almost unbelievably, nothing had landed on him. "Arix!" shouted Steve. Arix stood and brushed himself off. "Arix?!" sounds of struggling.  
"I'm fine."  
Steve sighed. "Good." Arix walked around the corner. Parts of the last zombie were spread across the floor. None of them were moving. Where was—oh.  
"Steve?" Arix pushed a rock off of his arm. He grinned, a bloody grin. Blood trickled from under his hair.  
"Looks like it was my turn to get squished."  
"You're still talking."  
"Sure I'm talking. The problem is getting me to stop. I talk to trees sometimes."  
"That's a bit weird."  
"I also talk to inanimate objects. That's even worse."  
"You just said trees."  
"Yeah, but they grow."  
"What the heck, Steve."  
"It's better than not talking and going insane."  
"How about you go find some human beings to talk to?"  
Steve grimaced. "Nah. I don't… I stay out here." all this time, Arix had been attempting to move a rock off of his stomach, and Steve had caught his breath. He worked his freed arm under the rock and shoved. It rolled away down the pile of rubble. Arix looked at him in disbelief. Steve shrugged. "I survived two years in the Beltenebris Guard."  
"I survived five years in the Outlands!"  
"Then you're very bad at foraging," joked Steve. Arix grabbed his arm and pulled.  
"Get up." Steve worked his way out of the rubble, stood, and fell down.  
"I'm fine."  
"You don't look fine."  
"Why are you talking so much all of a sudden?"  
"Zombie," said Arix, spinning as a low growl came from behind him. Oh crap, this one had a pitchfork. He ducked to one side. Wait no. Now it was going for Steve. He lunged forwards but before he could get between them Steve had grabbed the pitchfork and they were having a tugging battle. Arix slit its throat from behind.  
Steve used the pitchfork to pull himself up to his feet. "Let's get out of here."  
"Can you?"  
In answer, Steve silently limped around the corner. Two zombies met them. Steve impaled one and tossed it to the side like a bale of hay. "Away with ye. We're on a mission here." he turned at a squishing sound just in time to see Arix break a zombie's neck with a spinning kick. His jaw slackened. "How."  
"Come on!"  
Steve limped after Arix, back down the way they'd come. He heard a few more zombies jump down after them. He ignored them for the moment. "Arix. How do you feel?"  
"Pretty good. Hurry up."  
You should not be feeling pretty good! You should not be feeling any variation of good! Steve looked at the blood-soaked figure sprinting lightly along in front of him and his eyes narrowed. "Do you mean numb?" Arix was already around the next corner and didn't hear him. Steve decided he didn't need to.

 **A/N: Is it just me or is Arix acting slightly psychopathic? No not by chopping up zombies, that's about as normal as you can get in this world.  
To "D," the guest reviewer who responded to my comment about not getting reviews by typing 405 words of support: thank you. I was having a really terrible day and when I saw your review it made me so happy. And alright, fine, enough people have told me and I have finally looked at the text in my favorite books and noticed that it is in fact a thing, so Merry Christmas, here you go, I MADE SOME SORT OF ATTEMPT AT DIALOGUE PARAGRAPHING. Grrrr. Doesn't anyone appreciate massive walls of text? You people should read the story I wrote last year, it's novel-length (although I won't say anything about quality… don't ask) and practically one long paragraph. Yes this was intentional. I was under the impression there was such a thing as too much paragraphing so I decided to see how far I could get without any. The answer was pretty dang far. I rather liked it. It flooooowed.  
Personally, I think it's harder and not easier to deal with spliced up dialogue like this, but of course that's from my perspective…**


	14. Thirst

"Arix, stop! I'm in better condition than you—aah!" Steve dropped his pitchfork and hacked at a zombie that had jumped at him from behind. Arix ignored him. He'd be fine. Zombies kept following them, especially since Steve wasn't moving very quickly, but it looked like these would be the last—they were finally far enough away from the spawner that new zombies weren't showing up. Arix didn't know what was wrong with Steve: as far as he was concerned, he felt exhausted, but he was able to keep moving. He ducked under a swipe from a zombie and stabbed into its abdomen, ripping out putrid intestine. The zombie shrieked and he danced around it, grinning. "Arix!?" shouted Steve. Arix realized with surprise that he seemed to be losing his fight with the other zombie. He quickly finished off the partially-disemboweled zombie and sprinted over, head-butting the zombie's head away from Steve, then ripping his knife across its throat. It staggered back and fell to the floor twitching. Steve leaned against the wall, feeling his shoulder. "OK?" said Arix.  
"I think my shoulder's dislocated. If you could—" Arix shoved it back into place. Steve gasped and gritted his teeth, then flexed his fingers and experimented with moving his arm. "Well... that worked. Thanks." he looked up and smiled. He seemed so tired. "You're a mess," he said, wiping zombie slime off of Arix's forehead. Steve's breath smelled of blood. The smell was comforting. Human. And surprisingly appealing. Arix stepped closer. Steve was looking at his eyes. "Arix—" he said, frowning. Arix kissed him and he froze. Arix tasted blood, sweet, fresh blood. He'd never really thought about how good it tasted. He moved closer, knotting his fingers in Steve's hair. Blood trickled into his mouth from a cut on Steve's lip. He gently licked it clean. Then it occurred to him that it would bleed more if he bit down.  
Steve screamed. This, and the fact that he'd just been struck across the face, snapped Arix back to his senses. Steve was gasping in pain, one hand pressed to his bleeding lip, one interposed between himself and Arix. The palm of his hand was wet with blood. Arix resisted the urge to lick it. "Bloodlust kicking in?" said Steve in a casual tone, recovering.  
Arix wiped blood from his mouth and looked at it. The sweet taste was still in his mouth. He wanted more. "Oh God," he breathed. "Oh my God."  
Steve carefully felt his mangled lip. "I'm afraid we can't do anything about the fact that I'm covered in blood. Do you think you could warn me next time?"  
Arix turned and stumbled down the passage towards the faint glow of lava. They were almost back to the ravine. "Oh God oh God oh God…" he'd been a fool. Or had it been the Corruption, keeping him from realizing the truth? No, it was his own fault. He should have noticed when his wounds stopped hurting. He knew what that meant, but he had ignored it. Next his mind would start to slip away from him, and his skin would darken and decay, and his eyes would go black. Steve was calling after him. He kept going until he was standing on the edge of the ravine. The thread of fire that was the lava fall hung in the darkness on his right. He couldn't see the bottom of the ravine when he looked straight down, but where the lava spilled over the floor he could see that it was dizzyingly far down. More than enough to break all his bones. Maybe, just maybe, if he was crushed badly enough, he wouldn't come back. At least he wouldn't remember anything. He swayed forwards and caught himself. Damned survival instincts. He backed up and got a running start. Again he caught himself just at the edge. He fumed. Steve was shouting from somewhere behind him. Alright, so he wasn't going to jump off. He couldn't even manage that. But he could fall. He shut his eyes and inched his toes over the edge, feeling the precariousness of his balance. If he just leaned forwards… he swayed in place again and cursed himself for his lack of resolve. Alright, one more time. But suddenly Steve had his arms wrapped around him and was dragging him backwards.  
"Don't you dare!"  
"Please kill me."  
"No no no no no. Listen. I won't let you give up like this. Do you realize how surprising it is that you're still alive, after all this time?"  
"I just tried to eat your face!"  
"Yes. How about we both try to forget that experience?"  
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."  
"It's not your fault. We need to get out of here so I can treat you. Let's start walking."  
"Oh God I'm a terrible person."  
"Stop that. The corruption works faster if you give in, you need to keep enough faith in yourself to resist." Arix hid his face in his hand and whimpered. Steve shook him. "Arix, I didn't give you permission to give up on me. Come on."  
"Promise you'll kill me if I give in."  
"You're not going to."  
"Promise."  
"No. You're going to have to do better than that." Steve guided him back into the cave. "We'll try this way next." Arix was silent. Steve wasn't going to help him. Knowing Steve, he was going to be an idiot and stick around, trying to help, even if he lost his mind and tried to attack him. So that wasn't an option. He could last this out. He'd heard of people fighting the Corruption. He'd didn't have much trust in himself at the moment, but he didn't see any other option. He wasn't going to turn while Steve was there to suffer for it. If it came down to it he would kill himself. He would. "Arix," said Steve, pausing. "Mind if I take that knife?" dammit. So much for one method of suicide. But no, that was a good idea. He didn't trust himself with a knife now, either. "Good idea." he handed it over.

From the far side of the ravine, Herobrine watched his brother pull the infected human away from the edge. So. The human was no longer in denial, now it was Steve's turn. What was he thinking? Perhaps he thought he could save him, although Herobrine didn't know why he put so much effort into it. What was special about this human? Well, it was turning out rather entertaining after all, so it wasn't a waste. At least not for Herobrine. He waited until they were out of earshot to teleport across the ravine and walk quietly after them.

 **A/N: appropriate reactions to this chapter include: "wait wat" "No" "DAMMIT ARIX" and "YEY HEROBRINE!"… if you're Convenient-Alias, who apparently likes Herobrine. She's the reason that he's appearing more in the story, I was just going to kind of let him disappear. Which is lame. Hurrah for Convenient-Alias knowing what is up with good writing. Also thanks for the continued reviews! Yay reviews! They encourage me to keep working on this.  
Also, setting a dislocated shoulder *should* not work like this, especially if the subject doesn't have inhuman healing superpowers. Don't try this at home!  
Also, I've just realized, fun with the word "bloodlust."  
Arix's brain in this chapter is like "So you're NOT turning into a zombie. You're SURE you're not turning into a zombie? Because we're getting that you want to go lick the blood off Steve's face and maybe bite him. And that's definitely zombie-ish behavior. You're DEFINITELY not turning into a zombie? OK, I guess we're suddenly attracted to Steve now, because if you're sure you're not a zombie, then that sounds vaguely sexual in a creepy way. Yeah. We're just going to interpret it like that I guess. Go lick his face. Oh dear God why are you trying to eat him. Are you ABSOLUTELY SURE you're not turning into a zombie? No? Finally? Good. Please don't keep making me second-guess myself, I can't stand it." Poor Arix's brain. It's been through a lot and it's still trying to interpret things logically, even when Arix is having none of it. I wonder how long it will remain in a functional condition. **


	15. Darkness

Arix was lying on the floor. Steve sat a short distance away, head leaned against his knees, watching him in the circle of dim yellow light from the charm. Neither moved. Herobrine had been letting them wander for nearly a day, although they had no way to know that, and had successfully kept them within the same area of caves with a few minor confusion spells. Arix was in no condition to notice. He thought Steve had looked suspicious more than once, but regardless, it had worked. The human (well, more or less) seemed to be giving up, and both were exhausted—Arix theoretically more than Steve, who could take more, but he was able to ignore the symptoms, although even he was stumbling as he walked. If he waited much longer they might be indisposed to move and their confrontation would be rather boring. Or Arix might give in to the corruption and wander off, and that would be a much less interesting conversation, although he would enjoy seeing Steve's reaction. The Corruption was fascinating. The mind usually went before the body, but zombies never bothered their less-transformed brothers, even ones that must have smelled fairly human. It was beautiful, the hold that the Corruption had over them. He was convinced there was a supernatural aspect to the Corruption, and it fascinated him. He had cared about science once—he thought—but he'd lost his interest. Science attempted to impose order on a fundamentally chaotic system which only magic could even begin to deal with.  
Well, enough brooding in the shadows. Let's see if he could get these lazy lumps of tissue on their feet.

Steve was saying something. Arix raised his head. "Huh?" there was a sound of movement. Steve pulled him to his feet.  
"Sitting won't get us anywhere. Let's keep going."  
"You said we were going in circles."  
"Let's stop going in circles, then. Arix?" Arix was standing with his eyes closed, swaying lightly. It was happening again. It was hard to focus on Steve's voice. Words lost meaning. He became aware of the vast echoing emptiness of the caves, of the thick darkness, a darkness that seemed to move of itself. Sight no longer seemed to matter. His other senses were heightened, though while it lasted he felt dissociated from himself. He knew that the area around him was light. It was annoying. And Steve was standing in front of him, talking. He heard the words but they slid away without meaning. He had no real interest in changing. The darkness was calm. He didn't feel so desperate and fragmented. But Steve was trying to talk to him. He owed Steve. He focused his eyes on Steve—at first he couldn't remember how—and gradually the feeling subsided. He was exhausted again. He sighed and lowered his head. Steve raised it and looked into his eyes.  
"What were you saying?" said Arix faintly. Steve shook his head.  
"We still have time." he turned and immediately jumped backwards again. Arix's skin tingled at the feel of magic. He raised his head. Something flickered faintly in the passage before them. A force field.  
"No you don't."  
Steve tensed but didn't move. "How long have you been following us?"  
There were steps from behind them. Steve turned, pushing Arix behind him. Another force field quivered behind the figure standing a short distance down the passage. Herobrine tilted his head, giving Arix a calculating look. He smiled when he saw the bloodstained bandages around his wrist. "So you've found another pet. Well, it seems friendly enough."  
"He's been following us?" said Arix, nearly screaming. He thought they'd avoided that, at least.  
"What are you going to do with it when it turns?" said Herobrine. "It doesn't look especially dangerous. I suppose you could muzzle it and bring it around on a lead."  
"Herobrine, what do you want?" said Steve, fists clenched—more from tension than anger, Arix thought.  
"I don't understand your obsession with pets. They all just die anyway."  
"He's not a pet! He's a person!"  
"It's another pet. You find a sick puppy, and you take it home and try to nurse it back to health, and then it dies and you grieve. It's undignified. You should really find another hobby."  
"You're being ridiculous. What do you want?" his voice trembled, but it was firm. Herobrine lounged against the wall, fully relaxed, basking in their fear of him.  
"I don't understand why you continue to allow yourself to grow attached to things that are only going to die."  
"I'm afraid of what I'll be like if I lose that."  
"Everything dies but you and me."  
"You and I are walking crimes against nature."  
"You make the mistake of thinking that nature is order. It isn't. There is no order."  
"Logic?"  
Herobrine laughed. "Steve appeals to logic! Now that is funny."  
"I like logic."  
Herobrine laughed loudly. Arix wondered if they had forgotten about him. If they had, that was kind of insulting, but he wasn't going to argue. He'd rather not have Herobrine's attention. "Listen, I don't have the patience for this. Arix?"  
Dammit, he hadn't forgotten. Steve didn't move. "Yes?"  
"I was talking to Arix."  
"What do you want with him?"  
"First of all I want you to shut up." Herobrine looked at Arix. Don't make eye contact, he told himself, and then promptly made eye contact and cursed himself. He couldn't look away and he didn't have the power to resist. He struggled for a few moments before he was completely under his power. Herobrine smiled. Nothing else—the feeling of helplessness was enough torture. Steve stepped in between them, breaking the connection.  
"Hey. I asked a question."  
Herobrine stared at him. "So brave now." there was a humming in the air and a flicker of light. Herobrine was suddenly behind Steve. He gripped Arix around his wrist and pain jolted up his arm. He screamed. Herobrine dragged him across the floor, laughing and knocking Steve away. Arix struggled and bit at Herobrine's arm. His mind was a blank of pain and hatred. Somehow he understood that almost all of the pain was for its own sake, to punish him. "Hurts to come back, doesn't it? You should have thought of that before." the darkness came back, and this time it didn't lift. Somehow he understood that Herobrine had pulled it down over him and locked it in place. A smell of blood filled his nostrils and quickened his pulse with rage and hunger. Arix snarled and bit harder. Herobrine released him and he stumbled, turning to follow him. He spun him to face Steve. His wrist burned. "Go ahead, little zombie." he backed away, chuckling.  
"Arix?" said Steve, coming forwards, hand held out. Arix looked blankly at him and he hesitated. "You OK?"  
"Steve, why are you talking to it?" said Herobrine from a ledge fifteen feet above their heads, where he'd perched, dangling one arm over the edge.  
"Arix," said Steve. "Your eyes aren't black yet. You can't be gone. Talk to me."  
He growled. Steve looked accusingly at Herobrine, and Arix moved while his eyes were averted, lunging for his throat. Steve threw his arm up instinctively and Arix sunk his teeth into his forearm with a crushing, tearing strength alien to him. Steve spun, trying to throw him off, shouting at him, using his human name. Herobrine watched with a faint smile.

 **A/N:** **"D," this is later in the timeline, closer to the start of the longer story I'm working on. (Huh, lots of comparatives in that sentence there.) You know, you don't have to publish stories to have an account, and then you could follow me, we could exchange messages etc. Anyway—I think it's a combination of Steve learning to cope, and having someone to take care of.**

 **And dangit Convenient-Alias, take off your shipping goggles before you leave public reviews!**


	16. Remember Me

Words did nothing, and Steve was missing several bites from his arm. Herobrine watched with interest. Steve had been a skilled warrior as a human, and that was before he spent centuries fending for himself in the Outlands. And here he was losing a fight to one half transformed zombie. He wouldn't hit it. Perhaps he didn't have any weapons, but Steve didn't need any. "Just kill it," he called down. Steve ignored him, ducking under another lunge from Arix. He'd stopped trying to talk to it, at least, but now what was he doing? Was he trying to tire it out? Surely he realized he'd lose that fight. The Corruption could keep skeletons walking and fighting after the flesh had rotted away. Arix wasn't about to give up. Maybe he was hoping that the zombie recover control after some time had passed, but even if Herobrine weren't there to ensure that that didn't happen, Arix wasn't likely to revert after tasting blood at this stage. Steve cried out as Arix punched his recently dislocated shoulder. Herobrine smiled. There was a myth that all zombies were total blanks with no memories. It was a nice myth that helped survivors feel better about hacking their infected kin to death in self-defense. Like all myths of that sort, it was untrue. Zombies kept their memories. They simply had no will. The memories faded, of course, since the Corruption had no use for them, but becoming a zombie did not magically wipe a person's mind. Every secret could be used against you when you fought a transformed friend, that was why, in the Guard, every teammate had to know exactly what their friends carried. In the Guard everyone was a potential enemy. Concealed weapons—in other words, weapons that could unexpectedly end up in your throat if you were trying to overpower an infected friend—were supposed to be declared at the start of every shift, but zombies were often less forgetful about the weapons they'd brought with them than their human counterparts, who had likely been sleep deprived and not particularly well fed. Transforming back was much more traumatic than yielding to the Corruption in the first place, and Herobrine was convinced that there was where memories were lost, although he hadn't bothered to test it. There was a hollow sound from below, like someone beating on a drum. Or a zombie's ribs? Ah, Steve was finally fighting. Herobrine settled comfortably on his stomach with his chin resting on his arms to watch. They were going at it now, almost equally matched, Arix driven by the Corruption, Steve slowed by fatigue and pain. Actually, the zombie was a decent fighter. That was another thing—the Corruption could give strength, but it couldn't make a skilled fighter out of a helpless wimp. In Arix it was relying on muscle memory, letting him fight as he would have as a human, but faster, harder than he'd ever have been able to. Fresh zombies were the strongest. It was turning into an interesting match. Herobrine watched, thoughtfully scratching his chin stubble against the rough rock of the ledge, as they strayed close to one of the force fields. Steve brushed an arm against it and snapped it away. Then he appeared to realize something. Dropping his guard for a moment, he grabbed Arix and swung him into the force field. He fell to the floor, stunned. Steve backed away. "Good!" said Herobrine, wondering what he planned to do next. He'd only bought himself a few moments.

Steve took out his pickaxe and started burrowing into the wall.

Herobrine stared. "What…" Arix pushing himself up to a sitting position, gasping and shaking his hair out of his eyes.  
Steve was still burrowing into the stone with a repeated "nope nope nope nope nope nope nope" muttered in time to the strokes of the pickaxe. He'd completely snapped. Herobrine laughed. Arix pushed himself up and ran for the hole in the wall. The pickaxe disappeared from Steve's hand and he turned, stretching his empty hand towards Arix. A cube of stone formed under his hand. Arix crashed into it and stopped, growling, and lashed out at Steve, scratching him across the cheek with his nails. Steve backed away to the end of the tunnel he'd carved out and leaned panting against the wall. "Arix. You can calm down now. Remember me?" Arix snarled and tried to wriggle over the block. Steve easily shoved him back with a boot to the chest. "Just look at me, OK?" Herobrine teleported to the floor and walked towards them, clapping loudly.  
"Well done, Steve. But I don't understand why you keep talking to it. If you don't mind my asking, what are your plans for the future?" Steve sank to a sitting position and watched Arix scrabbling at him over the block.  
"Wait."  
"Well, you've always had more patience than me." Herobrine sighed comically. "I'm afraid I'll have to speed this up a little. It'll be easier on everyone." there was a flash of light as he punched the block and it scattered into shards of rock. Arix lunged forwards with a snarl of renewed excitement. Steve looked up at Herobrine.  
"You cheating bastard," he said. Then he had to defend himself.  
Herobrine found it appropriate to point and say "you're calling _who_ a bastard? Me?" but Steve was rather distracted by his friend, who was attempting to eat his face, and didn't have a comeback anyway.

He was doomed by the fact that he wouldn't damage the zombie. He was pinned in the narrow tunnel, there was no way to get past it into the cave where they could continue the fight on more even footing, although he spent several minutes trying and let it severely hurt him. Finally he went down. Arix should have won then, but Steve was a wrestler, and Arix wasn't fully transformed. He could still feel fatigue. Still, it looked mostly over. Steve was lying on his back, drenched in blood, just trying to keep Arix from biting him. He was mostly failing. Herobrine spread his hands and gently closed them. The force fields flickered away into air. He took a final look at the fight going on in the tunnel and Arix shot him a bloodied glance over Steve's arm. He smiled at the glinting reflection of his own eyes in the dark-mottled green ones. "Happy hunting, little zombie." he focused on his enchanting room and dissolved into light.

 **A/N: Convenient-Alias, why do I get the impression you're enjoying this for all the wrong reasons? Anyway, here's a chapter of full Herobrine POV, you should like that.  
Also, Steve mining away from danger while going "nope nope nope nope nope nope nope" was inspired by ATRpie's fanfic White-Eyed Steve.  
"D"/Itinerant Reader: hooray, you've joined us! Cool screen name by the way. And Steve totally uses logic in this chapter! I mean, it's insane logic, but it works! Temporarily…**


	17. Frame of Mind

For several moments Steve didn't register the meaning of the shriek that echoed down the passage outside. Herobrine had left. Herobrine had left? He took a deep breath and fought back, trapping Arix in a leg lock and pinning his arm down. They were both using their left arms instead of their right, he realized. His was in a severely chewed condition and Arix's was of course missing. What now? At least he could take a break. Arix could still move his arm a bit, but not enough to hit him.

Something sharp stabbed into the outside of Steve's thigh and he cried out. Arix tore free and screamed—a shrill, echoing scream that pained his ears, the kind that zombies used to call to each other—and clawed at him from above. He pinned Arix against the wall by his neck, digging in his fingers and feeling the pulse of blood stopped by the pressure. Arix scratched at his face and he closed his eyes, refusing to move and mess this up again. He could last this out.

He did.

He dropped his aching arm and let Arix fall limply against him. For several moments he lay without moving, trying to catch his breath. Then he heard damp footsteps and a low groan from the passage. Arix's friends had heard him. He struggled to his feet and fell with a whimper, clutching at his leg. He pulled out a sharpened piece of twisted metal with a rag wrapped around one end, and looked at it. Some kind of shiv. Well, points to Arix for having more than one reserve weapon. He had to admire his ingenuity although he'd rather not have it ending up embedded in his flesh. The zombie appeared at the end of his tunnel, a female in an advanced state of decay, bones showing through greenish tissue. It looked ready to fall apart but he knew from experience how dangerous it might be. It darted for him and he struggled upright and pulled Arix's sword into his left hand, stabbing at it and thrusting it back into the passage. He limped after it, stabbing when it got too close. Finally it fell into a lump on the ground. Steve stepped over it and fell, dropping the sword. He didn't get up. Was Arix dead? He hadn't meant to kill him. He'd stopped as soon as he was sure he was unconscious, but he hadn't checked for a pulse. He rolled onto his back and looked at Arix, lying on his side in the tunnel, light hair spread across the stone and glinting in the faint glow from the charm attached to his belt. He couldn't tell if he was breathing. If he woke up…

If his eyes were black when he woke, he'd have to kill him. He didn't like the idea, but Arix would want him to. He'd do it. It might take a while, considering the state he was in. Besides the open wounds, he realized, he felt chilled through and he was trembling. He knew he should be attending to his injuries, or checking Arix, or _something_ , but he didn't feel able to move. And he had no bandages anyway. His first priority was to calm down. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on his surroundings, tracing his fingertips through a pool of blood collecting near his leg. Slick blood. Rough stone. Slick, rough. He hummed to himself. Focus. He traced his fingers through the blood and began to sing, faintly, trying to distract himself from the pain.

 _Lavender's blue, dilly, dilly rosemary's green,  
When I am king, dilly, dilly you'll be my queen.  
Who told me so, dilly, dilly who told me so?  
I told myself, dilly, dilly, that's how I know. _

His pitch was off, but he didn't care. He focused on the way the sound hummed from his throat into the air, the feel of the rock digging into his shoulder blades, even the reek of the zombie beside him. He'd gotten used to the smell—as much as anyone could.

 _Rosemary's green, dilly, dilly lavender's blue,  
How will I know, dilly, dilly your love is true?  
Go find the sun, dilly, dilly ask him why he  
Deep in the night, dilly, dilly still thinks of me. _

_Lavender's blue, dilly, dilly rosemary's green,  
When you are king, dilly, dilly I will be queen  
Trust me I ask, dilly, dilly both night and day  
Until our sun, dilly, dilly darkens away. _

Warmth. Sunlight. He tried to picture them and it only made him feel colder.

 _Close we will live, dilly, dilly and when we die,  
Then in one grave, dilly, dilly close will we lie,  
If I die first, dilly, dilly, and that may be  
You will live on, dilly, dilly thinking of me. _

He always ended with that verse because it was ironic. Sometimes he was able to chuckle darkly at it. Sometimes it made him want to cry instead. This time he was in the second category. He moved on quickly, singing folk tunes, snatches of hymns, anything he could remember. Even a song about a plague that had wiped out the settlements in the western Outlands when he was a child. He'd never liked that one much after he had grown up enough to understand it, it was creepy, but the words and the tune were there when he finished a folk song praising the sun so he sang it. Then he fell silent because his throat was dry and it was starting to hurt. He was still trembling but it was mostly from cold. He looked towards the golden glow in the tunnel. Arix hadn't moved. Maybe he was dead. Maybe that was better. But he didn't want him to be dead. He wanted to get up and go check on him. Even if he was dead, he probably wouldn't stay that way for long if he didn't do something decisive. But he didn't want to have to and he still didn't feel able to move. He closed his eyes and wondered vaguely how much blood he had lost. He tried not to think about how very alone he was. Not that it was any different, he reminded himself. Steve, you're always alone, and you always find a way to deal with it. Stay calm. Stay calm.

A very faint groan came from the tunnel. He didn't hear it.

 **A/N: Steve getting stabbed was foreshadowed twice in previous chapters, did anyone notice? Once in 16, once in 13. Eheheheh I have had fun with this.  
Itinerant Reader, we're assuming the Corruption and/or zombifying disease is reversible up to a certain stage. You can cure zombie villagers in Minecraft, but have you noticed that zombies have black eyes and zombie villagers have normal eyes? In this world that's how you gauge whether someone can be saved, if their eyes are fully black… well for one thing they're probably trying to eat you by the time you see that, but regardless, there's nothing you can do for them. I may not have made that clear, sorry.  
This is turning into a long author note, but: the chapter title is a reference to Tristam & Braken-Frame of Mind, a song I was listening to as I uploaded this chapter. A friend of hers showed it to Convenient-Alias, who introduced me to it, and it became a favorite. It's very calming to listen to when you're stressed before finals. Also, the refrain: _with your shattered frame of mind...until somehow you can find / a slightly better frame of mind._ Seems kind of appropriate. I figured it was a better title than the other stuff I was coming up with.  
Also: potatoes.  
(I just watched The Martian with friends. Good movie. Good potatoes.)  
Aaaah I'm sorry just... end the pain... someone, bring me some nice sugary coffee spiked with laudanum and hypnotize me into effective studying...  
To anyone else preparing for tests: good luck, good coffee and potatoes to you. Also don't be an astronaut because everything in the solar system will try to kill you. **


	18. Bones

The first thing Arix was aware of was the smell of blood. Lots of blood. Why so much blood? The smell was sweet to him, and he hated that.

There was a faint sound from behind him.

He pushed himself up on his arm and looked around. His body ached dully. Where in hell was he? It was a narrow tunnel of some sort, perfectly rectangular. His mind was oddly scattered and he trembled from fatigue. He dragged himself towards the cave, where dead zombie was scattered around and Steve was slumped with one hand clasped over a red stain on his leg. As Arix watched he raised a bloodied right arm, tried to look at it, turned away with a whimper and curled painfully into a ball.

There was some sort of squishy matter stuck to Arix's teeth. He dislodged it with his tongue, then reflexively swallowed it. He shuddered.

His wrist was burning. He tore the bandage off with his teeth and found the raw flesh blackened where the mark used to be. He bit at it angrily and Steve looked up. He gasped, and nearly fell over sideways trying to reach Arix's sword. His fingertips hit the hilt and pushed it further away. He pulled himself after it and managed to grab it before looking back. Arix was looking at him over his wrist. His eyes glinted green mottled with black. "Arix?.." he bent his head to his wrist. "Arix don't do that." and he stopped. "It won't help. Can you hear me?" Arix looked from Steve's scratched face to the blood caked under his own nails and let himself fall onto the floor with a keening sound. Steve dropped the sword and crawled towards him.  
He wasn't dead.  
"Arix? Arix, it's alright. It was Herobrine. He's gone now."  
Arix's voice was so faint he almost missed it. "I bit you."  
Steve curled protectively around him before collapsing. "I'll get better."  
"But Steve, I bit you!" Arix had only just realized what that entailed and he began crying.  
"Oh. No don't worry about that, I'll be fine. The Corruption doesn't affect me."  
"Are you sure?"  
Well, if it was going to, now would be time, considering his low condition and the number of bite wounds. No need to share his pessimism with the already distraught human though.  
"Yeah. I'll be fine. I mean, I'm in pretty severe pain, but I'll be fine."  
"Can't you—respawn? Is that what you called it when you come back?"  
"Yeah, but I have to die first. Anything is better than dying. I try to avoid it as much as possible."  
"Oh."  
"…Actually, you have a point. If I can't walk I should commit suicide so we can get out of here. I hate doing that." he sighed comically and rubbed Arix's hair. "Arix, stop crying. You're dehydrated."  
"Ugh. I'm not usually like this."  
"You're not usually trapped in a madness-inducing cave system that defies the laws of physics and is haunted by Herobrine as well as the usual monsters. It's understandable."  
Arix nestled closer to him. "You're so warm."  
"Am I? I've been feeling cold."  
Steve felt his hand. It was cold.  
Zombies were cold.  
Neither of them mentioned that.  
Steve re-wrapped the bandage on his wrist and helped him stand before trying to stand himself. After the third attempt he curled up on the floor to rest. "Are you sure you shouldn't just kill yourself?" said Arix, and suddenly Steve was up on his feet.  
"No no no. I'm fine. I can walk."  
"That bad?"  
"It's death, Arix! It's not like trimming your nails!" he caught his breath, clinging to the wall. "It's not something you get used to. And maybe it's better that way." Arix ducked under his arm and pulled it over his shoulders.  
"Come on. Which direction are we going?" he pulled him away from the wall and almost fell when Steve leaned on him. Good Notch he was heavy. Fortunately Steve was able to support most of his own weight.  
"Uh. I don't know."  
"Does it matter?"  
Steve raised his head. "Actually yes. I've been thinking. Herobrine had us going in circles. Probably some sort of confusion spell."  
"Did he?"  
"Yes and now he's gone because he thinks you're dead. Or, you know, zombie. So it would be stupid to maintain it. The spell I mean. The fact that he bothered in the first place probably means that we're near an outlet that he didn't want us to find." Arix was silent. "Admit there's a good chance at least?"  
"Alright. Which way do we start walking?"  
He felt Steve's head swiveling. "Right," he said finally.  
"Any particular reason?"  
"Nope. When in doubt, walk right."  
"Good enough." Steve started to move forwards but was stopped by Arix. He looked back and found him staring blankly into the darkness. Not again. Every time it happened he was afraid he wouldn't come back. "Arix?" he waited. Finally the blank look changed to one of pained confusion and then he blinked and stumbled forward. Steve caught him and they stood leaning on each other.  
"It's getting harder," said Arix.  
"But you're not biting me, hey? That's something."  
"Not yet," said Arix darkly. Steve decided to change the subject and remembered that he'd meant to ask about something if Arix ever woke up.  
"…Hey. Nice shiv. I'm assuming that it's yours, anyway. Is it?" Arix looked down in dismay at the bloodied item which had suddenly appeared in Steve's hand. He shuddered.  
"You can keep that." he had meant it sarcastically, he expected Steve to throw it away. But he cupped it in his hand and it disappeared with a faint pop. "Yeah. That's my lucky shiv, or it was; I don't think I'll ever want to see it again. Killed my first zombie with it and it kept me alive for three weeks of hell."  
"You must have some stories."  
"Nothing unusual for our world."

Steve was running on pure stubbornness. He wasn't going to lie down and give up, and he refused to respawn. The only other option was that he kept walking. Somehow he made it work. Arix tried to stay focused on him. He was constantly aware of the darkness now, a living thing that tried to pull him in; not roughly, but with a soft, constant presence. It was calm in the darkness. Nothing hurt, nothing could worry him. He was whole, held and guided by something infinitely bigger than him.  
"Steve."  
"Yeah?"  
"If I die, will you cut off my arm before you leave me?"  
"How about I cut off your head so you don't come back?"  
"Do that too."  
"That's not going to happen though, because we're going to get out."  
"Listen. You don't want to have to deal with a witch. Have you fought one before?"  
"Several. One set me on fire. That was an interesting night."  
"Mages turn into witches when they're infected."  
"Always?"  
"As far as I know."  
"Huh. Well, at least you won't be a boring zombie."  
"Yeah, because magic zombies are so much better." he snorted. "They don't last very long, do they? I mean, they're just like normal zombies but with magic, they're not elite?" he specifically remembered the opposite, but he was trying to deny it.  
"Witches? No, from my experience they last quite a while. Like archers—the Corruption has more use for them, so it keeps them going. The one that set me on fire was just a skeleton."  
Arix fell silent. He was beginning to realize the hold the mark had on him. When he was bones it would still be there. Suddenly the darkness covered him, muting out Steve's voice, numbing his thoughts. He fought it back impatiently. He had to say something. It lifted for a moment and he grabbed Steve's shirt. Steve flinched, maybe expecting to be bitten again. Heat radiated from his body along with the sweet smell of blood. Arix tried to ignore it and looked into his eyes. "Thank you for trying," he said. "And I apologize in advance for anything I might do to you."

 **A/N: *author sings annoyingly* EEEEXPOOOOSITION!  
Again, thanks for the continued reviews, they make me happy.**


	19. The Sound of Water

Steve just looked at him. "Apology accepted?" said Arix, and Steve nodded. He didn't deny that it would be needed. "Good." he was giving up, and Arix could already feel the darkness flowing back. He closed his eyes.  
Steve picked him up and carried him onwards. Arix opened his eyes and flailed in disbelief.  
"What—Steve, put me down. You're barely walking! Steve!"  
"Shh." he tucked Arix's head under his chin and kept limping along.  
"How are you doing this?"  
"It's easier than walking alone."  
"That's not actually an explanation."  
Steve paused to catch his breath. "My pain tolerance is pretty good. Living for two centuries in a world where everything wants to eat, explode or dismember you will do that."  
"I am duly impressed. Please put me down." Steve lowered him carefully to the floor.  
"Does it seem like the air's fresher here?"  
Arix sniffed. "Maybe." he didn't think so, but if Steve was still trying to believe, he wasn't going to crush his dreams. They kept walking.

Arix was scaring Steve. He appeared not to feel fatigue, and walked with his eyes unfocused or even shut. Steve had to resist a paranoid compulsion to stop and check his eyes every few minutes. The irises were darkened in patches, and streaks were appearing in the whites, but there had been no pitch black areas when he last checked. And he wasn't going to consider giving up until his eyes had gone fully black, although with every hour, the chances of his responding to treatment dropped. That was if the treatment didn't outright kill him, which happened fairly often.  
Still. He wasn't giving up just yet, but Arix was scaring him. He didn't think Arix believed he was going to last, and that made it extremely unlikely that he would. Although he was having trouble finding an argument for that at the moment.  
He kept walking.

"Arix, who are you talking to?" Arix jerked his head up as Steve's voice cut into his consciousness. Had he been talking? It seemed he had, but he couldn't remember why.  
"I'm not sure. What was I saying?"  
"I couldn't tell."  
Arix sighed. He'd been awake for a moment, but the darkness was flowing back, like a deep, warm ocean. Like the covers on the cold morning that you just couldn't force yourself to leave. He'd lost track of why he was following Steve. Because he owed him, he guessed. He'd try to help him get out. He deserved that much. Beyond that, Arix wasn't really concerned. He closed his eyes.

Steve frowned. Arix had his eyes shut but he seemed perfectly aware of everything Steve was doing. When he stopped, Arix stopped. When he turned, Arix turned. At the same time he seemed to be reacting to things Steve couldn't see, things that made him sway as he walked, cock his head or smile as if at a shared secret. Steve was beginning to feel like he was left out of a conversation.  
He wondered what sort of conversation.

 ** _N_** _one nothing no one here magnetic pull come human mortal flesh bone all come at last  
_ ** _U_** _ndertow undercurrent underlying all there is all darkness all light all color is shadow of Nothing  
_ ** _C_** _ome human answer call answer kneel to trumpets come answer come_ ** _  
L_** _aughing gibbering silence madness key of magic blind all-seeing king where the darkness glows_ ** _  
E_** _verlasting night never day darkness is blinding light ever pounding drumbeats ever keening pipes_ ** _  
A_** _nswer to riddles answer the darkness answer your heartbeat why do you live hahahaha_ ** _  
R_** _iddles and rhyme riddles and rot ripping tearing rotting all come down all fall into me_

 ** _CH_** _urn the seas of nothing under our wings ripple ripple and churn through the worlds that we own_ ** _  
A_** _bove all keening thrumming endless mindless answering questioning the end the end in darkness_ ** _  
O_** _ver all under all filling flowing I am wind I am air I am sky I am I am I am I am I am_ ** _NOTHING_** **_  
S_** _ilence of stillness of static of the end the final blank the final gibbering last final stop at the center of madness_

Steve jumped at the harsh laugh that echoed into the darkness. "What?" he said, spinning. Arix was grinning at him. His eyes were in shadow and looked very dark. He chuckled.  
"You don't know."  
"Um.. what now?"  
"You think you know about her but you don't!"  
Steve opened his mouth to ask who "she" was, but quickly decided it was a bad idea. It was time for a change of subject. "Arix, are you thirsty?"  
Arix cocked his head and gave him a look that made Steve think that that might not have been a good question to ask either. He tensed instinctively.  
"Because I think I hear water running."  
Arix shrugged, uninterested.  
"Well, I'm thirsty. And you are too, although you might not realize it. Let's see if we can get to it."  
"Fine with me." Steve searched around for the water. He wasn't sure which direction the sound was coming from. Arix watched him with one corner of his mouth lifted in an amused smirk. His teeth glinted. "What are you doing?"  
"I'm… trying to figure out which direction we should go in."  
Arix jerked his head. "Up."  
Steve looked. "Oh. Are you sure? Can we get up there?"  
"I can give you a lift." Steve looked doubtfully at him.  
"I think I can manage." he got a running start and barely managed to pull himself up onto a ledge at the mouth of the passage, more of a crack in the wall that bent upwards. He held out his hand for Arix, who was gazing off into the distance again. "Arix come on," he said, trying to get his attention and snap him out of that eerie stare. Instead of taking his hand Arix sprinted forwards and jumped, clearing the wall without touching it and landing on Steve's back. Steve gasped. "Oh, well that works. You're getting good at this." he pushed himself up on hands and knees and Arix slid halfway off. He nuzzled a cut on Steve's neck, loosening the scab and letting it bleed against his cheek. Steve pushed him away. "Arix?" he wasn't surprised by the spring that knocked him against the wall or the bared teeth in his face. What surprised him was the fact that Arix was giggling. They scuffled, and Steve just managed to avoid falling back into the passage they'd climbed out of: Arix might have found an unlimited source of energy, but Steve didn't want to have to climb up a second time. "Arix!" he shouted, and he stopped giggling and let Steve shove him away. "Alright. Are you done?" Arix nodded sulkily. "Let's go." he didn't like the way those dark eyes followed him as he pulled himself up the crack in the wall, but the sound of water was louder now, musical and familiar. A sound that went with birdsong, mountain mist and grilling trout over a fire. He let it pull him upwards. When he had found the water he would let himself rest. He didn't allow himself to think any further than that.

 **A/N: Just realized I've been spelling Convenient Alias's name wrong in the author notes. It has a dash on DeviantArt, and here it doesn't, and I somehow missed that. Sorreh.  
Itinerant Reader: yes, archers are skeletons, and witches are a variation of zombie in this world. But creepers are just explosive vegetables that show up out of nowhere and want to kill you, and nobody's sure what endermen are. I have ideas for all of these which will probably be discussed at some point in some story eventually.  
And I like your evaluation of suicide-respawn being "two steps past a last resort" for Steve, that about sums it up. **


	20. Light, at What Price?

Steve looked up uncertainly into the darkness. He would have to climb. There was the fact that he wasn't sure he could support the weight of his body, and the fact that he still couldn't see where the water was and might not even be able to get to it, but what bothered him at the moment was that he couldn't see very far up the wall. His eyes were crossing from constantly straining into the dark, and the glowstone cast only a dim glow around them. It was a stagnant, mineral light, and although it was comforting in its own way and much better than nothing he found himself homesick for torchlight. He slumped against the wall.  
"What?" said Arix. "Afraid to climb?"  
"I can't see the top of the wall."  
"It's not far."  
Steve squinted. "Wait, you can see it?"  
"Yeah. The passage continues from there and bends down to where the water is." Steve looked at him. He was standing with his eyes closed again, as if listening. Suddenly they shot open and he grinned at him. "Afraid, Steve?"  
Steve shook his head. "I miss real light. You know, firelight. With flames that dance in the wind and warm your hand. And the smoky smell. I guess I'm just getting sick of nothing but glowstone—" he gaped. Before he could finish speaking, there was a rushing sound and the entire wall blazed out in front of him. Shadows flickered across the ceiling high above. He turned and found Arix smiling down at a leaping flame cupped in his hand. "What…" Arix waved his arm, tracing flame through the air, and then stopped, letting it wreathe his hand. The bandage on his wrist burned away and dropped in shreds to the floor. He didn't seem to mind.  
"Huh. Never been able to do that before."  
He looked up and grinned like a child learning a new trick. Steve grinned back, basking in the pool of warmth from the friendly flames. Then his grin faded and he looked intently at Arix's eyes. "When did that happen?"  
"What?"  
"Nothing." they were much darker.  
Arix shrugged and let the flame die away. "Are we doing this?"  
"You first," said Steve. He wasn't entirely sure why, but he felt that he didn't want to turn his back to Arix, and he didn't think it would be easy to convince him otherwise from the top of the wall if Arix decided he didn't feel like climbing up.  
"Sure," said Arix, and started climbing. His wrist didn't seem to be bleeding and that bothered Steve. Actually that's good, he told himself while scrambling for a toehold, you don't want him to die, now, do you? It's good that it's stopped bleeding. And it doesn't necessarily mean that he has no real blood left. It's still early for that. Right? Probably. Maybe.  
"Aah!" Arix reached down when he was a short distance from the top and hauled him up by the shirt. That wasn't what startled him, he was getting used to Arix as a humanoid abomination who didn't have to follow the same rules of logic as the rest of the world. What startled him was the feeling that he was being _pushed_ when there was nothing behind him but darkness. "Um, thanks. Where are we going?"  
"There."  
He couldn't see exactly what he was pointing at. "Mind leading the way?" Arix silently started forwards and Steve grabbed the tail of his shirt. He thought he could see light ahead, dim bluish light. Not sunlight, he thought. Not lava either. He was too tired to think about it much. He just kept walking, head down, stepping where Arix stepped. Keep walking. Keep on your feet. It's fine, you're not in too much pain, you can take this. Don't fall.  
He fell when Arix neglected to tell him that there was a drop coming up. He noticed it himself a split second before he slipped over the edge, by an intensified gleam of bluish light from the general area of his feet. He crashed onto the rocks and slid a short distance before he was able to stop himself. The rocks here were damp and slippery with moss. "Oh yeah," said Arix. "There's a drop there." he sounded amused. There was a grunt as he let himself down and a moment later he dropped lightly beside Steve and stood up. The water was a loud roar now and the light was bright enough for Steve to see the texture of the moss on the rocks without straining. He pulled himself up with an effort, refusing to let himself think about anything but the water ahead, and started towards the sound, squeezing through a narrow crevice. Arix followed behind him, and found him standing motionless on a wide ledge. He blinked and turned away. The light hurt his eyes.

Steve stood motionless, arms half-raised, drinking it in. It _was_ sunlight—sunlight filtered through falling water. Of course, there was the problem that he didn't know how high up they were and where the water was going and if there was rocky death at the bottom, but it was _sunlight_.

Arix backed away, back into the mossy antechamber, and sat on a rock, resting his eyes. The light half-blinded him, drained the color from everything. Why had he been so eager for it? Funny. Now, he liked this room, the dim dripping place with the moss. It was easy on the senses, and the arch of the ceiling made him think of a buried temple, forgotten by years. It was an ancient and melancholy place.  
Steve was calling him. He didn't feel like answering. He was tired.

He thought they could make it, if they jumped outwards a little and didn't follow the flow of the water straight down. He drew back, licking up the water that ran down his face. He'd been leaning out through the waterfall, clinging to the rocks with his good hand, trying to see the bottom and getting a drink while he was at it. He leaned back against the rocks, laughing, drenched with water. Almost out. Almost out and it was daytime. The sun was up. The sun… "Arix?" oh no. Where had he gone?

 **A/N: What do I mean, at what price? I mean besides the fact that Arix can apparently channel "the darkness" to create fire ex nihilo but it's bad for his autonomy as a (still semi more or less) human being. And the fact that the sunlight hurts his eyes.  
And I'm sure that the fact that zombies burn in the daylight won't be an issue or anything. Nah. I mean, at this point it's doubtful Steve will even be able to convince him to leave. Ahem. Not to give away the plot or anything. I just like to leave you all in SUSPEEEENSE!  
Also. The only reason I referred to the Nuclear Chaos as a "she" in the last chapter is because the artist MalakiaLaGatta has a Lovecraftian comic with the Daemon ****_Sultana_** **thank-you-very-much trapped in the form of a pink-haired, odd-eyed, insane human being. If you want a laugh go to (and I'm going to have to spell it out because FFN does not like links) http: slash slash malakialagatta dot deviantart dot com slash art slash LETITGOOOOOOO-534695478**


	21. Burning

_I am the darkness. do not believe I am only darkness I am the answer I am the final being I am the light. light is here surrounds me light is_

"Arix?"

 _dark. which is light which is blinding blinding true light to the seer to the blind true darkness. riddle human? shift the stones the wind turn back look perhaps your shadow is truer._

"Arix? You're scaring me."

 _mortal? take the blessing of slow still death? no such death only return only return only burning burning away flesh from bone consciousness from thought will from desire burning only burning in the inevitable return. you will answer the darkness._

"OK I'm just going to carry you if you don't mind…" something was touching him, and Arix didn't like it. He lashed out. There was a grunt and he smelled blood. It woke him up immediately, like the smell of coalsteam on a cold morning. "Arix no. Aaagh." Steve held him back and shook him, as if trying to wake him up. He was wide awake. "Listen, we're almost out! I am not giving up here! Come on, we're going." and then he was pulling him. Pulling him towards the light. Arix thrashed and bit in dismay, but Steve fended him off. "Arix, we're almost out! Don't you want to leave?"  
"No," he rasped, teeth bared.  
Steve kept dragging him towards the light. They both slipped on the mossy stones. "You're not yourself. I'm getting you out." Arix sputtered angrily. He was sick of Steve and his patronizing behavior. Honestly, he was a clueless idiot who couldn't tell a bat from his own dumb face, and most of this trouble was his fault. Arix was done with him. But Steve wasn't letting go, and he could still fight surprisingly well. Arix slipped around on the rocks, cursing and kicking. Steve squeezed him through the crevice and the blue light slashed into him. He pulled away, screaming. Steve caught him. "No, stop. It's going to be fine." he sounded terrified. Arix hooked his hand into a claw shape and felt his wrist burn with intense pain. Heat concentrated in the palm of his hand. He swept his hand up but Steve caught his arm, stabbing the fingers of his free hand into Arix's neck. Arix momentarily lost consciousness and the heat died away. Steve grabbed him and ran for the water. That's not _fair!_ thought Arix. Who taught him to fight mages? Oh right. His brother is Herobrine. Suddenly there was foamy water all around them and they were falling. When they hit the pool at the bottom the force tore them apart. After a moment of tumbling, stinging confusion, Arix realized he was floating underwater, a muffled crashing sound of falling water above him. A panorama of rocks, smudged with algae and mud, drifted in front of his face and a few fish darted away from his shadow. A branch tugged at his hair. He could feel the sun's rays beating down on his shoulders and he didn't want to get any closer to the source of that irritation, but he needed air. He swept his arm through the water. Nothing seemed to happen. Well. Damn. He'd never been much good at swimming even with both arms attached. Maybe it didn't matter. He'd rather stay underwater anyway. He let the water carry him forwards _,_ hair floating around his face. His head bumped into a rock and he growled lightly. Above him, the sound of something heavy dropping into the water stood out over the constant thunder of the waterfall and a shadow came between him and the sun. He relaxed, enjoying it. It didn't last. A hand grabbed the back of his shirt and he felt himself being towed slowly but steadily upwards, closer to the light. He dog-paddled backwards and his would-be rescuer, who was swimming weakly, slowed. Arix was doing even worse, however, and before long he felt his head break the surface and instinctively drew in a breath. Immediately he let it out in a yelp as the sunlight burned along his scalp. Steve pushed him in the direction of a half-submerged rock and he glided onto it. "Hush. It won't kill you." Arix sank down so that nothing but his face was above the water and panted, growling now and then in disgust at the bright light. Everything was a haze of light. Dark objects stood out as if through a blinding mist. He could dimly see Steve propped up against another rock, head thrown back, basking in the sunlight and shivering gratefully as the heat sank into his skin. Arix shut his eyes, growling to himself, and ducked his head underwater to wet his skin. When he came up Steve was right next to him. He looked leaner than Arix remembered, and his wounds weren't healing. "Hey. Feeling better? We got a free bath." Well, he seemed happy. Good for him. He closed his eyes. "Glad to see it. We can't lay in the water all day, though. It's not going to save you." he half-opened his eyes and watched Steve filling the water bottle. "Drink up. We may be walking for a while."  
"Where?"  
Steve looked up quickly. "You're talking again!"  
"Where are we going?"  
"I mean, just barely, and you're still giving me that creepy blank-eyed look, but hey. Improvement. I think being out of the darkness helps."  
Arix sighed. "Steve?"  
"Alright, I'm not entirely sure which part of the woods we're in. I don't recognize it. But I've been all over these parts so if we just start walking I'm sure I'll recognize something."  
"You don't sound desperate at all."  
"I am pretty desperate, but we're out of the caves, right? Things can only get better."  
"I never say that. I feel like I'm tempting fate."  
"I feel like I'm tempting fate just by existing. Come on." Steve lifted him out of the water and pulled him onto the grass, where he lay down to rest. Arix cringed under the sunlight, growling, and slid back into the water. Steve got up slowly. "Does it sting? Sorry about that, but we can't stop here. It's not far to the trees. You can make it." he dragged Arix out of the water and up onto his feet. Arix mechanically followed Steve towards the trees, gasping now and then in discomfort and wishing Steve would walk faster. Yes, he had a stab wound in the leg, and it was probably stiff now, but he was Steve. He should be able to walk faster. Arix whined. "Almost there," said Steve. "Just keep moving." he was so focused on moving forward that it was several strides before he realized Arix wasn't with him. He was trembling, eyes squeezed shut, head lowered. Steve wondered if he should go back and help him. He didn't want to move any more than necessary. But Arix suddenly cried out and twisted, clawing at his back, then fell into the grass. Steve didn't quite manage to run but he reached him quickly and picked him up. His skin felt hot and probably hurt—he fought violently against being touched. He screamed. It was a human scream. Steve half-dragged, half-carried him towards the trees, heart pounding.  
Arix kept screaming. He was burning, burning to death and nothing could help him. Everything was a haze of scalding light and prickling heat. He was still screaming when Steve pulled him under the trees and collapsed into the leaves. He didn't stop. Steve crawled into the deeper shadow at the foot of a large tree, dragging Arix with him, and buried him in wet leaves. Slowly he calmed and finally lay motionless, and Steve saw what he had missed in the caves. His skin was tinged a sickly green, more pronounced in patches, especially areas with less circulation. They wouldn't be able to walk under the sun. Steve scraped more leaves over Arix's face and looked at his surroundings. Birch woods stretched as far as he could see except for a rocky area starting at the waterfall. That didn't help him much, since he didn't remember ever seeing a waterfall near a birch wood on his scouting trips. And the sun was still rising. That gave him hope that he'd be able to find safety before monsters came upon him in his weakened condition, but it was bad for Arix. Slowly he let himself slide down into the leaves and watched the silvery birch leaves flickering in the wind above his head, showing pieces of bright blue sky and letting in rays of lethal sunlight. At some point he realized his eyes had closed without his knowledge. Well, he needed to reset his respawn point. If he managed to get killed off now and woke up back in the caves again, leaving Arix out here to fend for himself, that really would be too much. "Five minutes," he whispered. "Just five." he knew it would be longer.

 **A/N: Coalsteam, by the way, is one of those fantastical drinks, found occasionally on fictional faraway planets, which are definitely not coffee. Barely.  
It's basically hot black mud that gives you heart palpitations when you sniff it. If you drink it, you forgo the need for (or capacity for) sleep for roughly the next day. If you're in the Guard or going to school (or, Notch help you, ****_both at once_** **—shudders!) you will need it.  
This description, interestingly, was written under the influence of a "toe-tapper." Two shots of espresso with chocolate syrup. I am more awake than I've been in a month, and that's saying something since caffeine doesn't have a very strong effect on me. Usually.  
Hmm. Coalsteam-addicted scholarly Guardsman. I wonder if… well, if he does show up he'll be a character in another story, so no reason to worry about him here. **


	22. Sunscreen

The first thing beyond the overpowering blaze of light which Arix became aware of was the wind. It flowed across his body, just over the covers, and tickled his nose. He sneezed and opened his eyes. White branches waved above him and a tree creaked softly in the wind. What was he lying under? He shifted his arm, digging his fingers into a damp substance make up of flat soggy things. Oh. Leaves. He sat up, leaves pouring down his body, and lifted his arm. Was there something weird about his arm? He squinted. He couldn't tell what color it was. He turned his head and leaves fluttered out of his hair. Steve was lying on his back next to him, his wounded arm cradled close to his body, mouth half open. The wind stirred his hair. Arix crawled closer to him, looking at his wounds. Those were his fault. They were hideous. The sun burned the back of his neck, and he winced. He pulled his hair back over his neck and ears. It helped a little. Steve frowned as a leaf twitched against his cheek. Even asleep he looked worried. He shivered in the wind. Arix put a hand on his shoulder and his eyes widened at the heat that sank into his hand. Steve looked cold, but he felt hot to him. Arix realized he was physically incapable of warming him up. He didn't have any warmth left in his body. "Steve," he said, shaking him gently. He'd want to get up and keep moving, and people stayed warmer when they were awake. He'd set his respawn point to outside of the caves, though, which made Arix happy. Whatever happened to him, Steve wouldn't have to go back, at least. "Steve." he cupped the side of his face and shook his head. "Wake up." Steve's eyes finally opened, and he gasped at being woken up. "Hey," said Arix. Steve screamed and flailed his arms at Arix.  
"AAAH! No, no, no, no, no! Please!" nothing happened. He opened his eyes, holding Arix away from him by the shoulders. Arix looked down at him, leaves caught in his hair. "…Arix?"  
"It's OK. I feel better. I think the sun helps, actually." he grimaced and pulled his shirt higher on his neck. It didn't help much. Steve lay without moving and stared up at Arix. A tear spilled out of the corner of one eye and slid down Steve's cheek, shining in the sun. "Steve?" Steve closed his eyes, slumping back onto the leaves, and sobbed. "Steve?!" Arix wondered, had he scared him that badly? Steve pushed himself up and wrapped his arms around Arix, crying into his hair.  
"We're lost, Arix. We're lost and I can't help you." Arix understood, with a sudden clarity, what he had seen.  
"My eyes are black." Steve said nothing. "Aren't they?"  
"Not totally."  
"I can't see color anymore. This is a short reprieve, isn't it, before I—go away?"  
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Steve rocked him, still sobbing. Arix lifted his arm, which felt heavy—he was so tired, the sun stole his energy—and tucked it across his shoulders.  
"You got me out." Steve didn't seem to care. The muscles on Arix's shoulders were starting to twitch from the sun. Steve pushed him down and scraped leaves over him, still sobbing.  
"Stay there. I don't want you burning."  
"You should leave me," said Arix, spitting out a leaf. Actually, he'd prefer Steve to kill him so he wouldn't turn, but he didn't think Steve would be able to handle it.  
"No. No, I'm not. Just.. stay there and rest." Arix closed his eyes. When he opened them Steve was gone. He shook his head free of the leaves and looked around, searching through the white stems of the trees. No Steve. So he had gone. He closed his eyes. The sun burned his face. He could almost feel his skin peeling away. And the darkness was there again, slowly engulfing him, taking its time because it knew he couldn't resist anymore. He lay and watched it. So this is the end of you, he thought, realizing that his entire person was about to be erased. It hadn't been, though. For the moment it was still there.

Trying (unsuccessfully) to sneak past his mom to the well and wash off the evidence that he'd been playing in the mud, as he'd been expressly forbidden to do. He'd been tracing designs on his arms and legs, mimicking the mystical patterns on the walls of the temple of Notch.

Finding his horse wandering half-wild and crazed with fear one night in the nearer Outlands. As far as he could tell, its rider had been shot or pulled down and it had bolted. He searched for the rider through the night and found traces of blood around the mouth of a cave. He kept the horse.

He'd gone with Red to the library and quickly begun to regret it. "Pleeeeease. It's been at least three hours."  
"Shh. Less than two."  
"You didn't tell me you were going to be here for two hours!"  
"Quiet, this is a library. I'll leave as soon as I've finished this section."  
"Reeeeed! Books are boring!" Red finally looked up at him and found him turned upside-down in his chair. He smiled with pursed eyebrows.  
"What are you doing…"  
"Come on. You're done. Let's go."  
"I'm not done."  
"I'm going to burn all these books. I'll do it."  
"You don't have matches."  
"I'm a mage!"  
"Pff. You can't do that."  
"Yes I can!"  
"Arix no."  
"Arix yes!" he turned upright in the chair and snapped his fingers, not expecting anything to happen. To his intense and lasting surprise (he attempted to recreate the effect later and failed) a tiny spark appeared between his fingers. Red's eyes widened and he lowered the book he was holding. Arix's reaction was a little more extreme: he screamed and fell out of his chair.  
Well, it succeeded, more or less, because Red was laughing so loudly that he felt he should leave the library. He didn't stop for half an hour.

Doors were his nemesis. Once he told Red that he could force open a locked door with magic he wanted to see it, but frankly, he just couldn't figure it out. They developed a routine: approach door. Red, smirk at Arix, Arix, hammily wave arms and mutter jibberish before pressing hands against the door. Door, do nothing whatsoever. Red, kick open the door. Arix, complain that he "messed it up."

The sound of something moving through the leaves lifted him from his memories. He opened his eyes. Something dark came towards him through the haze. As it neared, he picked out dark pants and hair, and scarred skin across the shoulders. It was carrying something heavy slung in a shirt that could have been bright blue. Steve reached him and sank to his knees, dropping his shirt and its cargo into the leaves near Arix's face. He was trembling from fatigue. "You're back," said Arix. Steve dipped his fingers in his shirt and smeared something cool and soothing across Arix's cheek. He smiled. Steve methodically covered his exposed skin with the stuff. "What is that?"  
"Just mud. Does it help?"  
"Yeah."  
"Good. Anything to keep you around a little longer." Arix looked at him. "I might still be able to find my way home." Arix closed his eyes.  
"I'm sure you will." not with me, but you will. You're Steve.

 **A/N: Here have some happy Arix memories! Because his life is not all pain and suffering!**

 **Don't you hate when you're playing minecraft, and you're exploring, and it's awesome, and suddenly you realize that you have no idea where you are and you might never find your awesome house and your stuff again and you start panicking and run all over the place? I just couldn't handle it when I first played after the infinite world update. (I played PE first, on my friend's tablet. Fun times.) I had worked out a system of walking around the edges of my world so I knew where everything was and I couldn't get completely hopelessly lost, and suddenly the world was huge and it didn't work anymore. At first I was dismayed, then I realized how awesome it was.**

 **Question for the regulars (or anyone who cares to review actually) : Is hurt/comfort a good second genre, or should it be something else, like supernatural? Because back at the beginning, I kind of just wanted to put a second genre and went "well there is lots of rescuing and first aid, that sounds h/c-ish" and put that but now I'm not sure how accurate it is. Meh.**


	23. Michael

"Sit up, I can't reach your neck." Arix shifted to a sitting position. Steve scraped away leaves and daubed his neck with mud. Arix let his eyes close and his head hang down. He had no energy. The mud was helping the burn, though. "The pool flows into a stream, down that way." Arix didn't look where Steve was pointing. "If we follow it we'll be able to refresh your mud coat. It's a plan, anyway." he pulled open the front of Arix's torn shirt to reach his chest and gasped. He traced one of the dark lines crossing Arix's chest with a muddy finger, then chuckled with relief. "Oh, they're tattoos. You scared me for a moment there. I thought you had blood poisoning." when Arix was sufficiently coated with mud, Steve pulled him up to his feet before almost falling himself. For a while they leaned on each other. Arix was losing consciousness in patches. Now and then, he wasn't sure where or why he was and he detested everything about Steve but the smell of his blood. He knew he was fading, but he tried to go as slowly as he could, for Steve. He'd given him more than enough trouble already. The problem was that in the darkness, he couldn't remember why he'd ever cared about Steve. He had to fight it back purely with the knowledge that at one point he had felt differently. It wasn't much to go on. But, for the moment, it was enough. He let Steve lead him to the stream. He still couldn't see much through the haze—the mud didn't help his eyesight—and stumbled over every lump in the ground. His mud was already drying and rubbing off when they reached the stream. Steve helping him on with a fresh coat and they continued downstream.  
"What are you looking for?" said Arix in one of the moments when he was more or less in control of himself.  
"Anything." Good enough. He followed. Suddenly Steve froze, and he crashed into him. Steve was staring across the stream. A moment later he bolted away and leapt into the water with a splash. Mud billowed out from his shirt as he swam across. Arix looked at the rocks on the other side, where he seemed to be heading, and noticed a tall dark form standing there and watching his progress with, he thought, an air of disbelief. The features of its body were impossible to make out, even to someone who wasn't mostly blind during the daytime, because they were cloaked in shadow. Only the shining amethyst eyes and the mulberry-colored particles like large dry snowflakes which swirled along the outside of the cloak of shadow were clear. It was an enderman. Something about it gave Arix a feeling of revulsion. He looked away, growling. The enderman also looked away from Steve as he neared the shore and grabbed onto the edge of its rock. "No, no, wait!" it gave a purling sound which Arix could have interpreted as dismissive and moved away. The sounds that endermen made were alien, impossibly low vibrating scratches or burbles. A sound like deep shadow would make, if shadow could speak. "Wait please! Find Michael! He knows me. Tell him I need him. Please!" the enderman had not paused, and now it reached the edge of the rock and stepped casually off into the air. Before it could fall, it vanished with a subtle whooshing sound. Mulberry flakes spun in the place where it had last been. Steve groaned and laid his head down on the rock. After resting for a moment he swam slowly back. Arix didn't have the presence of mind to ask him what on earth had just happened. They kept walking. Steve was talking to himself. The darkness swelled up in him, and Arix grinned evilly. So Steve was insane. He knew it. Then, it faded. He shook his head slowly and reconsidered. Steve was reciting something. Like poetry. Maybe to pass the time. Or was he praying? He thought of asking, but then the darkness was back and he decided that, whatever it was, it was annoying. As they kept walking it became harder and harder to stay on his feet. He stumbled repeatedly and Steve had to haul him up. The sun drained his energy and even a thick coat of mud couldn't keep it out completely. And Steve wasn't doing any better. The catalyst was the darkness. Arix had a hard time reminding himself why he wanted to keep moving forwards. Even when he was himself, he knew there was probably no point. When the darkness came he wanted nothing but to lie down in the leaves. Finally he let himself fall and refused to move, growling faintly when Steve shook him. Steve sank down next to him and put a hand on his head. "Please. Please help us." Arix recognized the desperation in his voice. Under other circumstances he might have felt pity. Steve shifted so he could see Arix's face and pulled an eyelid back. Arix growled halfheartedly at him. Steve sighed. "I'm sorry." had he finally given up? Some small, buried piece of Arix still wished he wouldn't. But he only sat there. Arix worked up enough will to speak.  
"Are you going to kill me?" Steve said nothing and sat stroking his hair. Suddenly, in another moment of clarity, Arix was aware of a deep wave of darkness rushing towards him and knew that he'd never wake up from this. "You should," he said. "And thank you." Steve looked away and Arix shut his eyes, giving in to the power that poured through him and took hold. It was so good to stop fighting at last. He barely noticed Steve running away, shouting. He caught the name Michael. So he didn't have the guts to kill me, he thought. Somehow, something about that was funny, and he found a crooked grin on his face as the darkness pushed him up onto his feet. He knew he couldn't be walking, but new strength surged through him. He stretched and set off running lightly through the woods.

 **A/N: (edit) the moment I posted this chapter with a note explaining that reviews weren't showing up, the reviews showed up. So. Yeah. That's typical. Anyway, everything is back to normal, your reviews have finally gone through, proceed normally, keep leaving reviews because I love them, thank you.  
This story is going to be novel-length by the time I've finished it. I'm noticing a pattern here: I get an idea for a "short story," decide to play with it and see where it goes, and conclude with a piece of writing that's the size of a respectable novel. It's happened before. Well, I'll take it.  
Aaaand! I introduce my version of the endermen, my favorite mob! I had one that hung around the back of my house holding a sand block in my first world in PE. I thought it was beautiful. Surprisingly, I never accidentally aggro'd it, even before I looked up what they were and what made them angry. More recently in PC Creative I spawned one that doesn't seem to teleport inside my house, so it's become my roommate. Which means I can never sleep in that house because I get the "there are monsters nearby" message. I don't care. I like my monster roommate and I'm not throwing him out just so I can skip the night when I feel like it. **

**Oh. Just to be clear, this is not the end. There will be more. *smirks sadistically* Much more.**


	24. Shield

**Where are you going? Anywhere in particular?**

Arix stopped running.

 **There's a cave back that-a-way, zombie.**

Arix looked around. He was alone.

 **Yeah, it's me. I can be invisible if I wish.**

Arix caught a faint flicker in the air beside him. He grunted curiously.

 **Of course I've been following you. Yes, I know, I was supposed to think you dead and go nicely away and not bother you, but you know what? It's fucking boring sitting in an underground study shooting magic at the walls. I checked on Steve once or twice because I can and noticed you were still together. I decided to wait and see what happened—a little entertainment and spontaneity are good in life. You know, I almost thought you were going to make it for a while there. Almost. Heh. Had you come out in the valley just east of here instead, he'd have you back to his base by now, but no, he doesn't recognize the woods from this perspective so he has to wander helplessly in circles hoping he manages to stumble into an area that he's visited before. But then he very likely would have killed you. Steve is a real piece of work, isn't he? Actually, humans in general.**

Arix nodded, and something laughed.

 **Well look at that, you do have some autonomy. Or memory. Or something.**

Arix wanted to tell Herobrine to stop being a self-satisfied jerk. And yes, he knew perfectly well where the caves were. He could feel the dark calling to him, and he knew when he was getting too far away. He just didn't feel like going underground yet.

 **Go ahead and have some fun, sure. As a matter of fact, you don't need that mud. Scrape it off.**

A wave of new influence traveled through the darkness. Arix obediently scratched his neck and half-dried mud flaked off. He growled as the sunlight hit him.

 **Good. Now, call darkness.**

He raised his hand and a delicious, soft chill like a breath of cave air stole over him. He stopped squinting and relaxed. He could see more clearly, now. The haze was gone. He realized he was standing under a shield of darkness.

 **Witches don't burn in the sun. Haven't you noticed?**

He had vague memories of extremely annoying, nearly unkillable, spellcasting zombies that didn't burn in daylight and seemed to be inexplicably drawn to him.

 **The darkness values skill like ours. It will teach you. Perhaps it will even teach you things I myself don't know. But then, I wouldn't want your teacher.**

Arix put out his hand and a flame flickered in his palm. He smiled at the light, and something deep inside him twisted and cried out. He snapped the flame away, growling.

 **Persistent memories?**

Arix groaned.

 **They'll fade soon enough, don't worry. It helps if you stay in a cave. Ah, yes, the taste of fresh blood helps too. That reminds me. Where is Steve?**

Oh, so you're going to start that again. At the edge of darkness, Arix had made an agreement with himself—with the darkness—he and some other person who wasn't really him, or was he? Forget that, it made his head hurt. Regardless, he had made a decision not to hunt Steve down. Because he had helped him. Or tried. Or thought he had. Whatever. Arix had run off in another direction. He shook his head and started walking away from the voice.

 **You'd rather not? That's interesting. You're incredibly stubborn. I wonder how long you might have held out, if you hadn't already been so fucked up when you were first infected.**

Very scientific language there, Herobrine. Good job.

 **Ha! I do what I want.**

Wait. He's answering me. He's answering me?

 **I can influence the darkness if I like. Only briefly, or it may have… unpleasant side effects. But yes. For the present, your thoughts are as much mine as they are yours. And they are not entirely yours. Then again, I am still researching this. Perhaps they are yours. Perhaps you are fully yourself and fully in control, but your spirit has been corrupted. An interesting question. Where does corruptor end and corruption begin?**

Arix groaned.

 **No, you're not a scientific type. Unlike that friend of yours. What was his name? "Red?"**

Arix turned towards him, squinting.

 **Starting to forget that too? He was one of the main figures in your mind, before it cracked. No, I don't know much. Only what I can salvage from the dark. Or what you're willing to tell me? Which is—let me guess—nothing. You really are very stubborn.**

Well, enough of this. He was going to find a nice cool cave and rest in the darkness. He started walking. Something struck him and mud flaked off. He yelped, spinning around to look for the instigator. Herobrine remained invisible. Smugly invisible, Arix felt, although he couldn't really tell that from looking. "You look ridiculous," Herobrine said audibly, striking him again. "Let me help you." Arix walked away, snarling, but Herobrine teleported along after him, dusting him off and humming a little tune. When he was satisfied he teleported directly in front of him, causing a strange distortion in the air. "Cave's to your left, little zombie. Best of luck." he teleported away. Arix ignored him and kept walking straight. Before long he reached a cave. He looked suspiciously over his shoulder. Had Herobrine _known_ he was going to ignore his advice? He thought he could hear laughter… no. Wait. What was that? He could hear something. It sounded like Steve's voice, calling his name. He sighed and walked towards the cave. No more of that today. He'd decided not to kill Steve, but if he smelled his blood he might not be able to resist. He didn't particularly want to. So it was best if he got out of the way. Of course, when a little time had passed, he might not remember who Steve was, and then he could eat him without hesitation.  
"Arix!" that was definitely Steve. He thought he could hear him limping through the leaves. A crash a moment later suggested he'd fallen on his face. Arix smiled faintly as he walked towards the cave mouth, which was several yards uphill. He realized that there was a second set of footsteps following him through the leaves, a firm step which didn't falter when Steve fell. Suddenly there was a vibration in the air in front of him, and looking up, he saw Steve and an enderman standing in a shower of purple sparks. The enderman was gripping Steve by the back of his shirt and they were both staring at him. He stopped, staring back, and gave a low growl. He didn't like the enderman at all. "Don't hurt him," said Steve, stepping forwards, hands outstretched. "Arix, do you remember me?" sure. You taste good. If you have any sense, you'll leave while I still allow you. Steve inched closer, tensed for flight, hands still open. Jeb. What was wrong with this idiot? Arix growled warningly, and Steve paused, then continued moving forward. The enderman, Arix noticed with a strange feeling almost like fear—but no, he never felt fear now—was following. "Please come—" Arix feinted forwards, teeth bared, and Steve fell over backwards in haste to get away. Arix laughed. At the same time his body surged forwards. Prey helpless on the ground: he'd just been playing, he thought, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Steve scrabbled up to his knees and braced for a fight, but suddenly, in a swirl of purple flakes, the enderman was between the two of them. It grabbed at Arix, who threw flames at it. It retreated—or, at least, it teleported away from the flames, appearing briefly in the trees far off behind the mouth of the cave—and then it was behind him. It got a firm grip on his pack. Arix flung himself forwards with greater physical force than should technically have been possible, the forest darkening and blurring around him. There was a tearing sound, followed by the _vrrp_ of enderman teleportation. Then, stillness. Arix looked at Steve. Steve looked at Arix. A few moments passed, then the enderman was back, still holding the pack with dangling straps and staring at it in disbelief. In a brief flash Arix contemplated what his human self would do in this situation: smile hammily, wave, and say "hiiii." The enderman looked from the pack to Arix and he thought that its eyes narrowed slightly. It dropped the pack into the leaves. It was generally hard to gauge the emotions of a creature with no visible face, but this one was _pissed_. It warped forward and he met it with lashes of flame, one of which caught a long black arm. The creature teleported away with a guttural cry and batted at itself. Yep, it was definitely pissed. Arix was enjoying himself. Behind the enderman, he saw that Steve had picked up his pack and was holding it clutched to his chest as he watched the fight. Oh. Hey. Didn't he have… yes, he did. Flame abruptly snaked across the fabric of the pack and Steve dropped it in surprise. A moment later the hissing sound of activated dynamite registered. "Gaaah!" he kicked the pack, and it sailed a short distance through the air, landing closer to Arix. The enderman teleported backwards, grabbed Steve, and they both disappeared.  
Well, that was anticlimactic. Arix was going to be there alone when the thing—  
Sailing through the air, he changed his mind, this was not anticlimactic at all. This was absolute Notch damn fun and he was doing it again as soon as he found more dynamite. If he could remember. He might not remember by the time that happened, but who cared. Arix was flying, suckers!  
The enderman caught him, to the disgust of both parties concerned, and they slid through the thick carpet of leaves. He tore away and leapt to his feet, ears ringing. He'd thrown up a magical shield at the last moment and it had dampened the force of the explosion, but he had still felt the shock. He threw back his hands, ready to burn—but suddenly he couldn't think. The enderman was… purring. The sound jarred at his brain. For a moment, he thought that otherworldly light gleamed around the enderman. Arix shook his head violently. His focus was gone. The enderman warped forwards and touched him in a flash of ultraviolet light. The shield flickered and died and Arix screamed, stumbling back under the sun. The canopy of leaves protected him, but not enough. What hurt him most was the shock of the darkness being forced from him. He was no longer an organism, he was a mass of contradictions and pain. The enderman picked him up and walked back to Steve, whom he seized by the nape of the neck. Then, with a strange tooth-jarring vibration, the cave and white-stemmed trees flashed away and resolved into a scene of wooden planks and torchlight. Steve tumbled down onto the planks and the enderman, holding Arix at arm's length (and its arms were long,) walked to a bed against the wall and dropped him unceremoniously onto it. Steve pushed himself up to a sitting position. "Thank you, Michael."  
Arix lay burning in the blinding light, and he knew who he was, and that he was dying.

 **A/N: No, Michael's last name is not "Ex Machina." Whatever are you implying? I've been planning this for months!  
This chapter is two times longer than usual, but considering where it falls I didn't want to try breaking it up.  
Oh, and you thought Herobrine was gone, did you, Convenient Alias? Surprise! Happy late Birthday!  
And the ending of this scene was going to be much less awesome (and shorter) until Itinerant Reader reminded me that the mildly pyromaniacal (in case you didn't notice) zombie Arix was still carrying around dynamite…**


	25. A Voice from Outside

Burning. Wrapped in fire. Arix was again aware of himself as separate from the darkness, and he knew that he couldn't fight it. But he couldn't give in again.  
Sounds registered-clattering, scuffling, Steve's voice asking "what did you do to him?" There was a noncommittal _ccrrrr_ from nearby. Something batted softly at his cheek, rolling his head to face upwards. He opened his eyes. Mulberry flakes drifted down over him with a cool tingling sensation. The dark form crouched above him placed a hand over his eyes and began to purr again. "Um. Michael? What is that noise?" Singing, thought Arix, for reasons he was never sure of: it didn't sound like singing, but it was somehow reassuring and he clung to it. Just hearing it made him feel a little better. But it agitated the darkness, which surrounded him, torturing him with his own helplessness, nattering and laughing. It was no longer kind to him. He was an enemy. "Michael, you're scaring me. Please tell me you're not going to eat him." all at once a great rage rose up in Arix. He recognized the enderman's song. He'd heard it before. Not Arix, but the other. No not them. Him.

 _A far-off darkened planet where the sky was shadowing smoke and the earth had been stripped down to bedrock. Endermen wandered the pale naked rock, turning it almost black with their numbers. All were singing with a constant drone that scrambled thought and made him shake with fury. Over them flew an immense dragon the color of obsidian with a steely gleam to its hide. There was something terribly familiar about that dragon. It spun back through the air, diving down towards bedrock, mouth open in a scream. It was the scream of a creature that was unwillingly bound. Endermen teleported away from the place where the dragon's head rammed down, and where it had touched, the rock blackened and ate away into a crate of nothing. One enderman hadn't gone far enough, and the dragon lashed it with the tip of its tail as it soared back to the darkened sky. The enderman screamed, and although the sound was nothing like a scream Arix understood it for what it was. It teleported rapidly, trying to shake off the contagion eating into it. Slowly it began to dissolve into black powder. The dragon screamed from the sky, and Arix knew he had heard that voice somewhere, somehow, but not as a dragon screaming—_

He shook off the enderman's hands and bolted up, heaving. "Arix! It's OK, just calm down." he blinked. There was Steve, holding a jar, looking very worn with his hair sticking in all directions. "…Arix." Steve was gaping at him. Arix saw his own eyes reflected in Steve's. They were a muddy green. The enderman linked Steve and Arix in its long arms and the knowledge swam into Arix's head that _he was dying. It had lost control and now it was going to kill him_. Steve looked up quickly. "Not yet." Arix turned to look at the enderman and his eyes met the shining amethyst stars in the creature's head. For a split second, not long enough to comprehend exactly what was happening, he felt a deep connection with the creature. It closed its eyes and jerked away, hissing. A trail of sparks crossed the room to where it suddenly stood against the far wall, shaking its head violently. An eerie whirr that seemed to come from all directions at once started up, rising from the walls and floor, gradually swelling and distorting. Steve pushed Arix down and covered him with his body. "Get down. Michael!" the enderman, its whole body shuddering, trailed particles around the room with rapid-fire teleportation. Steve was torn away with a cry. The enderman beat him against the floor a few times and then disappeared. The whirring decreased in volume and crashing noises came from somewhere far below. Arix wondered if it was trashing Steve's basement. Steve lay motionless for a few moments, clutching the jar protectively against his chest, then slowly pushed himself up onto his knees. "Well that was very considerate of him, attacking me instead of you." he began to drag himself toward the bed. "You've just got to count your blessings with endermen."

Arix didn't quite fall unconscious but he wasn't sure exactly what was going on. Steve was undressing him and removing his bandages, he thought. Who was the dark form standing in the corner? Or was it just a shadow? It if was a shadow how could it look at him like that? "—and if you don't die first, this'll probably kill you, but if it works—" something like gelled fire was smeared across his skin and he screamed and lashed out. He couldn't get up. "Sorry, I've got you tied down. I know it hurts—" his nails lashed against something soft and Steve grunted. "Should've got the arm too. Hold still, this isn't nearly the worst you've had to put up with." yes it was. He kept screaming. At least, he assumed that the screaming noise was him, and not the thing crawling through the leaves. Steve kept working, but his voice was strained. "Aaaaaah. Calm down, Arix, stop it." he didn't. Steve slapped him across the face with the stuff. "SHUT! UP!" Arix lost consciousness.

Night came, and Steve sat near Arix's bed, watching, turning an uneaten apple over and over in his hands. He had survived the cure so far, and one large blood transfusion, which had killed Steve—not that that mattered much. He'd deal with the fact that his hands were shaking later. He'd died before. He probably would again, before the night was up. Maybe more than once depending on how well Arix did: he was convulsing rapidly, a good indication that the treatment was working. And also that it might kill him at any minute. But it was working. Steve sighed and tossed the apple more quickly from hand to hand. The question was whether the blood would kill him. The blood from the transfusions never bothered a zombie, but sometimes, when one was successfully healed and almost human again, the blood in their veins would react negatively with their human body and kill them at the last moment. And there was still the fact that, apparently, the corruption was trying to kill him. He wasn't going to get his hopes up. He held Arix steady for a moment so he could look at him. Tattooed sigils and decorative lines traced down his body. He was tall and compact, bearing the evidence of a hard life in a map of scars and lean hard muscles. How old was he? Steve felt that he was very young, but he looked close to Steve's biological age, not more than a few years younger. There had been nothing personal in his belongings, only tools and a few items he'd picked up. He'd said he was a scavenger. Steve wondered what had driven him to choose a solitary life with such a high risk of death and such little respect. Maybe a reckless streak, maybe a feeling that he had nothing to lose and riches to gain. And he knew that Arix didn't like the city. Every year settlements on the outskirts were overrun and had to be torched. Survivors ended up on the streets and tried to find something to do. Maybe he'd been one of them. His nose was pointed, and hair with a suggestion of wave fell to his shoulders. It was a color between straw and dirt. More dirt at the moment, as there was quite a bit of actual dirt caked into it. Blood seeped from the loose bandage he'd applied to the stump of his right arm—he couldn't risk cutting off circulation and interfering with the cure by leaving tight bandages on. This was going to mean wasting a lot of blood. Steve let go of him and sat back, looking at the apple. It was going to be a long night.

Arix's next memory was of running down a tunnel where the walls dripped with blood, splashed into maddening hieroglyphs. The tunnel stretched endlessly before him as he ran. The walls began to melt, splashing around his feet. Someone was screaming. He was screaming.

A shadowed humanoid form faced him. Maybe a zombie, the stench was like one. As he watched, it fell apart into tatters of darkness which spread until he was floating in the void, helpless, in pain, lashing out and biting at his wrist as the darkness chattered around him.

He was glad that he couldn't clearly remember any more than that. Now and then, images would surface from that time and leave him sick for hours. But they faded. He became aware of the terrible jerking pain in his body. And cold. He was so very, very cold. Something prodded at his arm, and warmth flooded his veins. He lost consciousness again.

Sometime later, he became aware of the sound of birdsong.

 **A/N: 25 chapters in and I finally decide to give you a full physical description of the main character. Hey! It was dark earlier! What was I going to say, "you can't see him because it's dark but this is what the dude looks like"? Oh wait, I actually did that for his original eye color. But, but it was important to the story!  
So is he going to die or live? At this point, dying would probably be much less traumatic.  
Also, yay 25 chapters! I wasn't sure it would get to this point, but here we are. **


	26. Birdsong

Arix lay listening to the birdsong. It seemed to come from all around him. Bright, liquid cries and chitters, a sound of pure joy. His eyes were open but he couldn't see anything. He twitched his fingers, testing his ability to move, then touched his side. Bandages. He moved his hand up. More bandages. Skin, skin, bandages. His skin and muscles burned dully. It took him a quarter of an hour to move his hand to his face, now and then losing consciousness for a few seconds. When he touched his face he realized why he couldn't see anything. A bandage was tied over his eyes. He worked it off over his head. The sunlight hit him in the face like a mallet, and his whole body jerked. He shut his eyes and kept them shut for a while, then slowly, carefully half-opened them. He found that he could see, although everything was a brilliant blur. He could even pick out some faint colors. Something dark was lying on the bed near him. He reached for it and came short. It was on his right side. He tried to roll towards it and couldn't move. Jeb, he thought, I don't even have the strength to roll over? He lunged, and felt his body give a sort of bounce. Something tugged against his chest. He felt down and found a restraining strap tied across it. Ah. It took him another half hour to pick the knot out and tug the restraint loose enough for him to roll over. Finally he managed it, and grabbed the dark thing, registering at the last minute that his vision was less blurry and that it looked like hair. It was hair. It sat up with a scream: a person had been sleeping with his head resting on the edge of the bed. "Arix?" Arix blinked at the talking blur. The voice sounded familiar. "You're alive. You're alive! It worked—I didn't kill you! You're alive! And I didn't kill you!" The blur came closer until he could make out deep blue eyes and a wide grin. "How do you feel? Pretty terrible? You look pretty terrible."  
"I… where…?"  
"Oh. Well you're—I don't know where to start—actually, I guess I should ask first if you remember me?"  
Arix stared at the blurry face. He knew it was familiar. What confused him was that he had no sense of _when_ he'd known this person. Old friend? New friend? He didn't even know how he'd gotten where he was, how could he remember some random guy? He kept staring, straining to remember. Steve was looking worried.

Steve.

Slowly the pieces fell together.

"Steve?" Steve's face lit up.  
"You know me!"  
Arix coughed. His throat was impossibly dry. "Of course."  
"What else can you remember? Well, maybe you shouldn't talk. Let me get you some water. Try to remember, OK? It's fine if you don't remember much, alright, but you should try." Arix sat squinting into space and listening to the birdsong as Steve went for water. He was remembering parts of what had brought him here—although he still wasn't sure where "here" was. There was a lot of darkness, and pain, and a hideous feeling that his mind was not his own. By the time Steve returned he was trembling. A moment later he found himself encased in warmth. "Hey. It's OK. You're safe now." there was that ever-present hint of zombie ichor and sweat, along with a smell like wet earth.  
"I remember you," he grated into Steve's shoulder. Steve held the water to his lips and he drank. "You found me in the caves. I was… was I lost?"  
"I think you were, yes."  
"And…" he frowned. "I know I lost an arm. I remember that."  
"Good, I'd hate to explain it to you more than once."  
"And lava?"  
Steve had to think for a moment. "There was lava, yes."  
"We met Herobrine."  
"Unfortunately yes. Always awkward introducing a new friend to your family."  
"What…"  
"Sorry, I'll explain later. I'm just glad you're alive."  
"I'm a revenant."  
Steve paused. "What?"  
"A revenant. A cured zombie."  
"Oh, they've got a name for you now? I thought you were just, you know, cured zombies."  
Arix frowned. "That's right, you're about two centuries out of date."  
"Am I?"  
"I remember a city…"  
"Keep remembering, but how do you feel?"  
"Bad."  
"That's a given. Any particular badness bothering you?" actually yes. He'd been nauseous when he woke up, but it had been growing steadily worse until it was a new kind of torture that he hadn't realized existed. "Huh. I might be able to help that. Keep remembering, if we're lucky you might not lose anything. I mean it might be better if you didn't remember it all but, no ignore me, I don't know what I'm saying, I'll be back." there was a guttural sound. Arix caught a glimpse of Michael eying him narrowly from behind a lantern, then he vanished in a flurry of purple.

Arix sat with his eyes closed. The sunlight hurt them. Islands of memory were reappearing eerily in his mind. He knew they were his, and gradually, as he looked at them, he realized that they belonged. But it was startling the way that they appeared out of the mist. That felt like him, though… yeah, he'd probably done that… OK, he could've done without remembering that one. There was a lot he wouldn't have minded forgetting, actually. But no. These memories were part of him and if they hadn't come back there would be a worrying blankness where they belonged. With the exception of some of the more recent memories: those could take their time coming back. He was aware of them in the background, pressing in like a dark wave held back by a dike. He didn't want to handle those just yet. Not just yet. "Here we go," said Steve, returning and holding something out to him. "Can you hold it yourself?"  
"Yeah." Arix glanced briefly into the bowl, trying to decide what color the dark liquid was, but gave up and shut his eyes again.  
"It's going to be a while before your eyes adjust," said Steve. "Just don't strain them." Arix tasted the liquid, bracing himself for the bitter taste of medicine. A warm, flowery-tasting liquid flowed easily down his throat. He shivered.  
"What is this?" Steve said nothing, and Arix glanced at him and saw that he was looking at him curiously. "What?"  
"Nothing. It's good for you, that's what." well, he didn't need encouragement. He was feeling warmer already, and it did seem to be helping the nausea. By the time he had drained the bowl he felt much better. "Did it help?"  
"Yeah."  
"Good! Think you can go back to sleep now? You need to heal. And you haven't had enough sleep lately. Are you cold? I'll get you a blanket."  
"I am cold. What was it, though?" he licked his lips, thinking that the taste was slightly familiar, but he couldn't think why.  
"Do you have to know?"  
"…Yes? You're making me suspicious."  
"I thought you knew, actually."  
"Steve."  
"Alright. You just relieved me of another pint of my blood. Glad it helped." Arix threw the bowl and heard it clatter somewhere across the room. He leaned over, retching, but couldn't bring himself to throw up. His stomach had settled. He punched himself in the abdomen. Steve grabbed his arm and held it. "Arix! I don't mind—I mean—calm down!"  
"I hate you." Arix threw himself down and ignored Steve, who piled blankets over him and replaced the bandage over his eyes, then walked away with a faint creak of floorboards. Arix didn't fall asleep for a long time, but lay, with a pleasant warmth in his belly, wishing he could throw up. Finally he fell into a light sleep. Steve woke him sometime later and convinced him to sit up and drink broth—"It's not blood, I promise." for some time he floated half-awake, listening to a bird singing close outside the window. At last he fell asleep listening to it.

 **A/N: Hello, human!Arix's new blood phobia! I am sure this will not bother him at all, in a constantly apocalyptic world where violent death is common!  
"Revenant" is literally "one who returns," often used as "a ghost or spirit returning after death." I looked the word up because I had seen it used here and there in fiction as a "cool word" and not knowing what it actually meant was bugging me. I looked it up and went "ooooh! I am using that for my derogatory converted zombie terminology." So now I'm doing the thing which originally annoyed me. That happens a lot, actually. **


	27. Revenant

Arix was woken by a draft of cool air pouring across his face. He snuggled deeper under the covers. He'd been having some pretty messed up dreams, and he'd been sick, hadn't he? He didn't feel like moving. He'd left the window open before he went to bed and it must have gotten cold in the night—no, it was night now, or else the city wouldn't be so quiet.

He wasn't in the city. Even at night it was never this quiet. The whole place seemed to heave and groan, and there was always a distant sound of zombies and fighting and sometimes screaming. And the air pouring over him was fresh and pure, the kind he smelled only in the Outlands. Suddenly the current in the air changed and a soft, melancholy sound like water far in the distance poured over and around the space he was in.

 _Shhhhhhhhhhh_.

Arix felt the bed make a dipping motion, and there was a creak of boards. The sound subsided.

What.

Arix pulled the bandage off over his head and blinked around a room he vaguely remembered from his dreams. Colored glass lanterns threw jewels of light across a wooden floor and dark blue carpets. Past the head of his bed, the walls bent, disappearing around a bend. His eyes travelled to where the far side of the room also bent out of sight. The room was donut-shaped.

He hadn't been dreaming, he was here with Steve. He took several deep breaths to steady himself. His eyesight was better, he realized. Objects were clearer and some of the color was coming back. And the light didn't hurt his eyes. There was something different about the light. It was softer.

 _Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh_.

He distinctly felt the whole place rock underneath him. He turned towards the window and found himself faced by a sheet of black, dimpled across one half with coarse glass. The window had a pane missing. And the night was there, right outside. He couldn't see anything.

 _Shhhhhhhhhhhhh_.

He somehow extricated himself from the blankets Steve had wrapped him in and scrambled backwards out of the bed, falling with a thud onto the floor. The jolt reminded him of what bad condition he was in. He lay for a while, listening to the sound and waiting for his heart to stop pounding. It wasn't the voices. It wasn't going to hurt him. It sounded nice and he knew he recognized it from somewhere. The floor was definitely shifting under him, though. Was he in a boat? Was there any part of boats that was ring-shaped? He couldn't think of any boats that looked like donuts.

"Arix!" someone shouted through the floorboards.  
"Steve."  
"You're up."  
"Well I'm sort of lying on floor, but yeah, I'm 'up'."  
"Huh? Hold on, I'm coming up." there was a guttural sound from nearby. Arix looked, then quickly averted his eyes. Fortunately he hadn't made eye contact. Michael was standing at the foot of the bed, pondering the missing pane of glass, which was clasped in his hands. He glanced at Arix, then turned away and vanished, and Arix heard footsteps above him. A trapdoor near the wall flew up and Steve's head appeared. He rested his chin on the floor, seeming surprised at finding Arix on his eye level. "Uh. Hey."  
"Hey."  
"Are you alright?"  
"Oh yeah. Never been better. It's just, y'know, I can't figure out how to stand up. How are you?"  
"Good. Good. Kind of twitchy." Steve looked up at the sound of Michael's footsteps on the roof, then frowned at the missing windowpane. "Michael! Are you responsible for this?" there was a long pause, then what could have been the enderman equivalent of a sheepish grunt. "Michael! My window! Do you want spiders sticking their nasty little legs in here? Do you?" Michael appeared suddenly, there was a _thunk_ and the windowpane appeared standing on the floorboards, and then he disappeared again and they heard the boards above them creak under his weight. Steve sighed and pulled himself onto the floor, rolling onto his back to lay near Arix. "Inscrutable things, endermen."

 _Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh_.

The floor rocked gently underneath them.

 _Tp. Tp tp tp tp tp_

The enderman reappeared in the room with a pained sound like an inflated ball being punctured and shook itself in a flurry of purple flakes. "Oh, by the way, I haven't introduced you to Michael. Don't look at him, he's shy. Michael, this is Arix. Arix, Michael." Michael ignored Arix and wandered away, around the bend of the wall to where Arix couldn't see him. The tapping sounds had swelled to a quiet roar. Arix lay listening.

Rain. That was rain. The other sound was wind. Raindrops glittered just outside the window in the light cast from inside. Steve pushed himself up, went to the pane of glass and struck it with his hand. It shattered into small fragments which disappeared with a pop instead of scattering across the floor. Then he walked to a chest in the corner, rummaged around, and came back with a new pane. He placed it in the empty space and rubbed his hand over the place where the two joined.

 _Thock_.

When he took his hand away, a single wide pane of glass filled the window, perfectly fitted to the edges. Steve, acting like nothing unusual had happened, pulled Arix up to his feet and supported him. "How's your vision doing? It should be better now since there's less light."  
"Yeah. It is." Arix had just got his balance and was supporting most of his own weight when the floor rocked gently. Steve caught him on his way back to the floor.  
"Careful!" the wind, Arix realized, had the sound that it did when it rushed through leaves. The house was ring-shaped. He looked out the window and thought from his new height he could see rain dancing on leaves where the light shone.  
"Are we in a treehouse?"  
"You only just realized that? Well of course you did, you've been unconscious for most of this time and you never saw the outside. Yes, we're in a treehouse. It's very handy for escaping things. Creepers are bad at climbing. Not that I haven't seen the things try, but they usually don't notice me up here."  
"How did I get in here if I never saw the outside?"  
"Michael."  
"Oh."  
"You don't remember any of that? Maybe that's better."  
"I think the last thing I remember is you shoving me down a waterfall."  
Steve laughed uncomfortably. "I pulled you down the waterfall, and we both got sand up our noses. Huh… That's a good place to cut off, I guess."  
"What am I missing?"  
"Not much. What were you doing up? Need anything?" Arix shrugged. He'd just been disoriented, really. Now that he thought about it he only had one pressing question.  
"What do I look like?" Steve looked at him and pursed his lips.  
"Um. Descriptions aren't my… hold on, do I have a mirror? I do. Are you up for a short walk?"  
"Sure." Steve guided him to a trapdoor, which he flipped up with his foot, revealing where a ladder descended the wall. Getting Arix down it was a bit awkward. Finally when he was more or less stuck on the bottom rung he wriggled out of Steve's grasp and let himself tumble onto the floor.  
"Aah! Are you alright?"  
"Fine. Might have sprained my dignity."  
Steve snorted. "Don't scare me." Arix pulled himself up with the ladder and looked around. He'd fallen into a kitchen, crescent-shaped as half of this floor was partitioned off. A stove sat raised off the wooden floor on a slab of bricks against the far wall with an excellent-smelling pot bubbling softly on top. There was a table, a single chair and a few chests, and another trapdoor against the wall on the inside of the ring. Arix pried it halfway up with his foot and wasn't surprised to see a wet tree trunk glinting in the light a short distance away.  
"Don't fall down there, that's a bit of a longer drop," said Steve. He descended the ladder swiftly, hand-over-hand. Arix let the trapdoor fall and Steve led him through a door into the second part of the level. This was a bathroom, with a toilet—Arix guessed there was a pipe running down the side of the tree into the ground—and some kind of bench over a grate which the wind gusted through, with a bucket. Oh, a shower. There was also a small mirror. Steve pulled several replacement panes of mirror out of a chest and extended it down the wall in the same way that he had fixed the window, then pulled Arix in front of it. "And there you are." Arix took a step closer.  
Well, he was missing an arm, mostly naked and covered in bandages and traces of dried mud and salve, but he was expecting that. The first troubling detail he noticed was that his underpants were about to fall off. He hitched them up, reflecting that this would be more embarrassing if Steve hadn't already seen him more than half dead, covered in mud, covered in blood, and trying to eat his face. …Good God, he looked terrible, though. His muddy hair had more or less dried into a brick. He had the beginnings of a beard with traces of dried blood caked into it. Seeing that, he suddenly felt sick again. He rubbed them off with the back of his hand, noticing at the same time that his wrist was heavily bandaged and ached, a kind of persistent ache that made him want to do violence to the arm to drive it away. His skin was ashen and looked dead in patches. Alright, all of that was fine. He was concerned about his eyes. He stepped closer and stared into the mirror. His right eye was green, although a dark, smudgy green. His left eye was almost black. Even the white was dark. "They'll continue to lighten as your vision improves. It might not stay like that." Arix smiled without humor.  
"Considering my luck it probably will."  
"It won't affect your vision if it does. And the white will lighten, at least."  
"I'm less concerned about my vision, more about others'."  
"Huh?" Steve looked blankly at him. Arix made faces at his reflection.  
"So I'm an ex-human ex-mage, I'm sure I'll fit in just fine back at the hive."  
"Will they give you trouble?"  
"Nah. Nobody gives trouble, it's not your fault you went and got yourself bit. I mean, I'll get funny looks and have people nervously pulling their children out of my way for the rest of my life, but that's no big deal." Steve looked at him for several seconds. He didn't seem sure what to say. Finally he decided.  
"Are you hungry?"  
"Oh yes."

 **A/N: This was a weird chapter, but I like it. There's been a lot of screaming. There will be more screaming. We need a couple of chapters' worth of eating cookies in the treehouse to calm down.**

 **Also. "I have food, do you want food?" appears to be the default "are you OK friend?" Steve response. And I love that.**

 **I am writing this is in my own treehouse, which is nowhere near as awesome as Steve's, just a platform on stilts that leans against a live oak. But interestingly I wasn't planning to have these chapters take place in a treehouse until a dream I had a few weeks back, during the pre-finals stress fest. I woke up happy one morning because I'd dreamed about Steve in his treehouse, and during the dream, thought to myself "oh yeah, I remember thinking about giving Steve a treehouse and for some reason I decided not to use that idea. I should put it in The Mark." But when I woke up, it was disorienting, because I realized that** ** _I had never had that idea_** **about Steve having a treehouse until I had the dream.**

 **Also, just realized this has somehow become another double-length chapter. Oh well.**


	28. The House in the Trees

"The question is whether you're left-handed."  
"Do you mean now, or originally?"  
"I mean, were you born left-handed?"  
"Nope. But don't worry, I am now."  
"Well, that's unfortunate."  
"Meh. It's an excuse for my handwriting." even as he said it Arix wondered if he'd ever figure out how to write with his left hand. Khau, a mage friend, was left-handed, and watching him write made Arix's brain hurt. There was a superstition that left-handed people were better at magic, but Arix didn't believe that any more than the nonsense about void-eyed people being inherently evil. After all, _he_ wasn't left-handed.  
Of course, he wasn't a very good mage either. But that wasn't the point.  
He was lying on the bench letting Steve wash his hair in a bucket so that it didn't drip muddy water onto his clean bandages, wrapped in the blanket because Steve hadn't thought to wash his clothes while saving his life and they were a stiff bundle of dried mud and blood. They'd spent the last hour cleaning and re-bandaging Arix by inches, and he'd discovered why he had so many bandages. Steve had identified every last scratch on his body and was treating them all with antiseptic herbs. "It's very likely you'll get some sort of infection before this is over, and it'll probably be nasty. Sometimes a person will recover from the corruption and die of infection two weeks later."  
"That would be dumb." Arix stopped complaining that he looked like a mummy.  
"So, there's still a high probability that you die."  
"Right. Thanks for being an encouraging ray of sunshine. Hey! Did you take the braids out?"  
"Er yes. I can put them back in later if you care."  
"I do. I liked them."  
"Alright."  
"I'm bad at braids." he laughed. "I mean, I always have been. Probably more than ever now." Steve did not laugh. Arix thought he was taking it harder than Arix himself was. Then again, it all seemed unreal to him. There were still vacant patches in his memory where he knew something belonged, and a sense of long darkness and evil voices which he was trying not to remember yet, although he knew he would have to. Steve toweled his hair and sat back to look at him. Arix lifted an eyebrow. "Well?"  
"You look much more human."  
"And I feel much less like a clod of dirt. Hooray." Steve nodded and sat without speaking for a while. "Were you asleep earlier? Did I wake you up?" asked Arix. Steve seemed tired. But he shook his head.  
"Ready for that soup?" Arix remembered how hungry he was and nodded, sitting up. Steve had given him some bread and milk earlier, but he'd been distracted by how filthy he was and they had sidetracked to clean him off. But now that he'd been awake for a while, and now that he thought of it, he realized he was desperately hungry.

Steve scooped some of the contents of the pot into a bowl and looked doubtfully at it.  
"It's soup."  
"You're telling me because I might not be able to tell?"  
"Well, it's sort of cobbled together soup. I don't keep much food here, I had to do some foraging while you were asleep. It may not be much good but it's food. Sit down."  
Arix sank into the single chair gratefully. He'd been trying not to admit how taxing it was just to stand. "It's probably better than crunchy rat."  
"What?"  
"A delicacy of the inner city. You mash some rats with a hammer or a piece of brick or what have you, you skin 'em and gut 'em and throw them in a pot with some water of whatever grade is handy, you add whatever edible substance is lying around that you can't do anything else with, and you pray it doesn't kill you. Crunchy, because little pieces of bone have a tendency to get stuck between your teeth. Rat, for obvious reasons."  
"Mm." Steve processed this for a moment. "I've eaten my share of rat. They're OK roasted on a stick. Mashing them with a hammer doesn't sound like the cleanest way to kill something if you plan on eating it."  
"It's fun though. Stress relief. And frankly they deserve no better after gnawing through doors and chests and food stores and corpses."  
"See, that's the one thing I don't like about rats, you never know what they've been eating." Arix took the bowl and glanced suspiciously at its contents. Bits of flesh and bits of leaf floated in a broth, probably the same he'd been given earlier. He tasted it.  
"Yep, better than crunchy rat." he tasted it again. "Definitely better. Actually, I think this is the best soup I've had in a while."  
"Really. Good, I had my doubts. There's a spoon here if—"  
Arix, drinking soup, made a dismissive noise and slowly drained the bowl. "Yep. Definitely the best soup I've had in a long time. What's in it?" remembering what had happened last time he asked Steve what he was drinking, he half expected Steve to say something like 'fish blood and the tears of the damned.'  
"Just a duck and some greens. I really should have saved the marrow for you, now that I think of it. I ate it myself yesterday."  
"Nah." Arix drained his second bowl. "This makes me feel ready to go have more adventures. I mean, if I could stand up for long enough." Steve smiled vacantly in a way that made Arix uncomfortable.  
"You want more?"  
"Thanks." what was it about that look? Oh. That was it. "You're betting on me dying, aren't you?"  
Steve looked at him. "I don't want you to die."  
"Well, good. Because I'm a stubborn cuss and I'm not going to." Steve nodded with that same smile. It was starting to bother Arix. "Have you had revenants die on you?" Steve shrugged.  
"It's why I keep the cure around. I've tried converting zombies before, but they're always pretty far gone when I find them. One recovered but developed an infection. She lived for about a month."  
"I'm sorry. It sounds like an interesting story."  
"It really isn't. Death, death, not-death and some suffering, pain and suffering, fever, more death, burn the bodies. Perhaps you haven't seen enough death to be tired of it yet. I have."  
"I have too," said Arix, surprised by the sharp tone in his voice. Steve sank down onto the floor and ran a hand through his hair.  
"Sorry. I'm sort of—scattered—I died a lot, bringing you back."  
"Huh?"  
"Blood transfusions. I couldn't do it all in one go, I don't heal that quickly. Not from blood loss." now Arix was surprised he hadn't realized sooner. Zombies needed human blood transfusions to recover, and Steve was the only human out here.  
"So the whole time I was unconscious, you were killing yourself repeatedly."  
"Something like that." and he'd said it was painful, Arix was certain he remembered that. He slid down onto the floor and leaned his head against Steve's shoulder. Steve sighed, flexing his hands. "I'm glad you're not angry at me."  
"Was I angry at you?"  
"I think so. You've developed an aversion to blood. That's quite natural, now that I think about it." Arix had indeed developed an aversion to blood, because even hearing the word made him feel queasy. He put his soup down, pressed his forehead against his knees and tried to think of something else. The rain fell harder, making a rush against the window. Every window glittered in the lantern light and the view of nearby leaves was distorted by streams of water. Arix closed his eyes and sipped his soup, feeling better. He was safe here.

 _Answer_

What? No. No no no no no no. He wasn't thinking about that, it wasn't real.

 _Answer to riddles answer the darkness answer your heartbeat why do you live_

His stomach twisted. He put the bowl down and wrapped himself more tightly in the blanket. Suddenly the walls were too thin and the rain drumming against the windows made him nervous. Did it want to come in?  
"Hear something?" said Steve, and Arix jumped. Steve looked closely at him. "Persistent memories?" Arix nodded. Steve tucked the ends of the blanket around him. "Well, it's better to face them. Remember it's over now."  
That was the problem, thought Arix, it might never be over.

 **A/N: You know what I want to know? Who does Herobrine's hair?! I wouldn't expect him to bother doing it himself, but it's even less likely that he lets a human do it for him. (Though the image of Herobrine teleporting into a hair salon and threatening to murder everyone if they don't give him exactly what he wants is hilarious.) In the past he let Steve do it for him, which is why short-haired Steve is so good at braiding hair.  
…Expect a dumb drabble about this, possibly, in the future. Because now I'm really curious about this. Is there a spell of Insta-Hairdo? Does it involve harvesting the life energy of an innocent sheep and rubbing it in your hair? Wouldn't it be much easier just to look up a tutorial and do it yourself?! But then, Herobrine never takes the "easy" route when there's a more fun alternative, does he?  
I SUMMON THEE, POWERS OF THE AIR, TO  
… to… just braid my goddam hair. Please? AAAH DON'T PULL ON IT THAT HURTS**


	29. Singing in the Dead of Night

He put out a shaking hand and touched the wall. Dry stone. Already he could feel the thirst that would torment him later. He took his hand away, leaving a bloody smear, and stumbled down the passageway. He stooped, partly because the pain in his midsection wouldn't allow him to stand, partly to avoid crashing his head into jagged points of rock that hung from the low ceiling. His right eye was totally blind. From his left, he sometimes thought he could see the passage ahead of him in a strange washed-out night vision with no color and no depth. He closed his eyes, not liking these glimpses. Suddenly there was a shriek from behind him and the passage sprang into view in sharp white light. Half-blinded, he began running.

Arix lay in bed, listening. There was only a faint drumming of rain on the roof and a funny scratching sound from the floor. He turned, afraid of he didn't know what, and saw that the sound was made by charcoal rubbing across the floorboards. Steve was sitting cross-legged, drawing on the floor and talking to Michael. "And this is the horse running away from the caves because it's smarter than Arix. See?" Michael, wadded up like a sleeping spider opposite Steve, made an impatient-sounding noise, reached out, took one of the pieces of charcoal and stared at it curiously. A shadowy hand closed around it, there was a crunch and charcoal dust floated down. "Alright," said Steve, "It doesn't look much like a horse. But do you get the point?" Michael was staring at his coal-dust-covered hand. He stood and shook it, shedding a flurry of purple flakes and a black dust storm over Steve, who sneezed. Michael teleported backward and tensed as if startled, then walked back, sat on the floor, carefully took another piece of charcoal in his hand and scraped it across the floor, leaving a black line. He froze. "See?" said Steve, watching with a smile. Michael leapt up and stared at the charcoal. A moment later he was teleporting around the room, scribbling lines on the walls. Arix snuggled back into his blankets.

He was riding a zombie horse at full gallop across bare hills. He couldn't move. The horse was taking him where it pleased. Evidently that was to the huge cave that opened up like a mouth in the mountainside ahead of them. Dark clouds hung over the mountain, and a sound of distant thunder scratched at the dry air.

He woke with the clatter of dead hooves on stone still pounding in his ears. Everything was grey. He looked up through the window, spangled with still water, at a sullen grey sky. His gaze traveled to his bandaged wrist. He'd taken a glance at it when Steve changed the bandage—a raw mess with a vague dark outline burned into the tissues in place of the mark. He rolled onto his back, looking at the ceiling instead. The mark was the last of his problems. Revenants did occasionally regress, especially early on. One reason they were distrusted by the majority of the human race. Not the main one. The main reason was propaganda. A hand touched his forehead and he flinched. "You have a fever," said Steve. "It's starting." Right. Right. Infection, high chance of further maiming or death. He was worried. Terrified. Not about the infection, though, about the things he was starting to hear, repeating over and over in the back of his mind. Things that he knew with a hideous certainty he had heard before. He'd been trying to block them out but they were back. He let them swarm back. He'd known that they wouldn't stay away forever. But for a while, just a short while, things had seemed so… normal. Human. Now he was pulled back into the blank chill of empty space, lost from the stars.

He was aware of the sunlight pouring through the window and trembling, patchy with leaf-shade, on his blanket. He was aware of Michael lazily tossing a pillow up in the air and catching it, and the constant birdsong as Steve changed his bandages. He heard when Steve told him that he needed to go foraging, and even heard him quietly begging Michael to stay and watch over him. But he felt separate. He was watching the black wave cover his mind for a second time.

He lay awake in the long hours after midnight, listening to a single bird crying out beside his window in the darkness, the rustle of leaves.

"I think it'll be alright as long as we can beat the infection," said Steve, flexing Arix's wrist and looking narrowly at the raw mess of tendons and the corrupted mark. Arix said nothing. He knew Steve was giving up on that possibility. Or maybe not, because he talked for half an hour about a new blend of herbs he was going to try, and made him drink something which, this time, really did taste like the tears of the damned.

He finally fell into a restless sleep just before morning, and again he was frozen on the back of a zombie horse carrying him across dead hills. He wondered if it was his own horse, dead because of his stupidity and its misguided loyalty. He was woken, slowly and reluctantly, by the feeling of being hotter than usual, although he was generally feverish. Morning light poured through the windows and pooled on the floorboards. He was cradled in Steve's arms, the reason for feeling so warm. Steve was humming quietly, something sad. A cool tingling sensation near his leg and a glimpse of shadow and a swirl of sparks told him that Michael was nearby.

 _Why is he so fragile?_

"They all are."

 _Humans? Why?_

"They just are. One story about the creation goes that humans never died, at first. When they were ready they simply passed on, eyes open, without having to age. But we forgot how to get ready. We didn't want to leave. And there would have been too many of us, all immortal in a finite world, so we started to die."

 _Would you rather die?_

"Yes. I should have died long ago. I should have lived. Instead, I was out here, alone, bound to the earth forever, unable to die and unable to live like a human."

 _Because you have placed restrictions on yourself._

"I'm not one of them. I shouldn't pretend that I am."

 _That is true_.

Steve sighed and leaned against the enderman.

 _What are you doing?_

"I'm very tired, Michael. Does it bother you?"

 _Does touching things make you feel better? Is that also a human thing?_

"Er yes. Something like that."

Micheal linked his arms around Steve. They sat like that for a while, then Steve left for the day's foraging, leaving Arix to stare unseeingly at the changing pattern of light and shadow on the walls and listen to the voices in his head.

 **A/N: Well. That's done. I don't know why this chapter was so hard to write. I think I just hit a slump for a few days, I didn't get much writing done on anything. Also there's the fact that this chapter could literally just be "Arix is insane and also sick. Steve sad. Michael confused." Next chapter will be 30 though, which I didn't expect when I was beginning this, so woohoo! A Lost Pine chapter will be going up soon too, hopefully, now that I'm out of the writing slump.  
And, yes, that's a play on Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night, because I couldn't think of a better title. **


	30. Argos

It had been two days since Steve had vanished into the woods. "I have to check on something," he'd said, but Arix wondered if he just wanted to get away from him. He'd left Arix with a supply of clean bandages and herbs and detailed instructions. He was doing better, he said, and could easily take care of himself for a few days.

Arix guessed that he believed he was going to take a turn for the worse anyway, and didn't want to be there to see it.

He had left some greens, which Arix ate the first day, a few handfuls of mashed grass seeds that cooked like oatmeal and part of a fried rabbit. It wasn't much food, but Arix wasn't hungry. He spent the time mostly slumped at the table, looking at his wrist or staring out the window to avoid looking at his wrist. The wound was starting to heal, new red flesh forming in the depression where they'd cut. Traces of the mark were visible on this returning flesh as well. His strength was coming back, and he could climb the ladder alone, although not very easily. At first he thought Michael had gone at the same time as Steve, but the enderman made brief appearances, perhaps to check on him. He didn't think it liked him. Or perhaps he was afraid Arix would look him in the eyes again, and he'd have to answer to Steve for the consequences.

The nights were the worst. He was no longer so sick or exhausted that he could pass out for long periods of time, and he was starting to have trouble falling asleep under that window, so close to the night. He thought he could hear movement out there. Sometimes he did hear movement, and once a spider came and scratched against the window. He was almost relieved to see it. "Arix, it's a spider, see? Just a spider, you're fine with spiders, you've killed hundreds of them probably. That's all that's out there. Nocturnal spiders wandering around and maybe some zombies. That's all." He paced around the ring-shaped room, keeping close to the inside wall, now and then flopping down on the carpet in an especially well-lit area when fatigue caught up to him. One thing he was grateful for was the quantity of lanterns. Steve kept his house very well lit, and several times during the nights Arix thought that this was the only thing keeping him from having a full-fledged panic attack.

He didn't blame Steve for leaving, it would probably be happening anyway. After the first time he responded with simple irritation. Just walking, walking, not sleepy yet, so I'm walking and suddenly my heart's pounding and oh God why. Again? Come on, no, we just went through this and we concluded that there's no reason for you to be panicking right now, remember? Remember?

Apparently his body didn't remember. So he'd wedge himself into a corner, surrounded by lanterns, and wait, with a sick feeling that he was going to be killed at any second. He wasn't, of course, which made him feel stupid, until he glanced at the window and suddenly the fear was back, and he couldn't do a thing about it, which made him angry, until finally he was so tired that he was able to fall asleep. In his dreams he heard every creak of the boards insulating him from the night, every crunch and rattle of movement outside. He was like this in the cold hours before dawn of the third day when he suddenly awoke. He'd been hearing a commotion from below him—what sounded like chickens clucking and a dog barking. It didn't stop when he woke, so it wasn't a dream. He lay listening in disbelief, heart pounding. Then he heard shouting. It sounded like Steve. He got up and tumbled down to the first floor—he'd discovered that the easiest way of descending the ladder was to jump onto a rung halfway down, then off onto the floor. The clucking was quieter. " _AND STAY THERE, YOU FEATHERY PUFFBALL ABOMINATIONS!_ " then there was only some muttering and creaking, until the trapdoor flew up and the upper half of a slightly wild-eyed Steve appeared. His hair looked like a deconstructive artist had carefully messed it up in every individual way possible: it was sticking up in clumps in every direction except the one it was supposed to go in, and full of dirt and leaves. A thin old dog with a white face was draped around his shoulders, fondly licking the side of his face. "Arix!"  
Arix realized he was grinning, albeit with a questioning look. "Hey." Steve wriggled onto the floor, kicked the trapdoor shut, and stood the dog on the floor. It trotted stiffly to Arix and gave him a sniffing inspection, tail wagging.  
"You look better," said Steve, standing up and removed a limp chicken from his belt.  
"What on earth happened to that?"  
"I think it had a stroke and died while we were travelling. Just couldn't stand the skeleton horse, maybe." he threw it down in a corner.  
"Skeleton horse."  
"How are you? Are you hungry?"  
"Er. I could be."  
"I'm hungry." Steve set a melon on the table. Or, rather, a melon suddenly appeared out of nowhere with a popping sound. Arix reflected that this ought to startle him, but it didn't.  
"What happened down there? It sounded like the hen apocalypse."  
"Oh. That." he laughed uncomfortably. "I was trying to build a makeshift coop, got startled by a zombie, and dropped the chickens. They didn't fancy being caught again. Argos tried to help, but he made it worse. Or more exciting, at least. Story of his life. He can't easily hurt them, at least, he's nearly toothless. This is Argos, by the way; the main reason I left, he's not as good at taking care of himself these days. I did get us some real food though."  
"Why didn't you just tell me you had to feed your dog? I like dogs."  
Steve looked down to where the dog was pressed against his legs, whining softly and staring up with its tongue hanging out. He rubbed its side with his leg and the dog leaned into it, grunting. "Well, he's old. He might have died, I've been expecting it for the past two years—and it doesn't help that he's a reckless old idiot. I didn't want to get your hopes up."  
"Oh, he's fine."  
"Fortunately. And you look much better." Steve touched him, checking for fever, then looked suspiciously at a cut on his neck.  
"It's closed, I didn't see any reason to bandage it."  
"It is." Steve looked intently at him.  
"I'm going to live, Steve. Sorry to prove you wrong."  
Maybe it was because his memory was still a bit fuzzy, but Arix couldn't remember ever seeing a bigger smile. "Good. That's good."  
" _Ackpthbt_. Can't breathe." Steve released him from the crushing hug and held him at arm's length to look at him.  
"How are you?"  
"Good. Well, OK. Kind of jumpy. I'm glad you're back."  
"Me, too." Argos stood, putting his paws on Arix's hips and grinning up at him. "Well, we might as well cook this chicken. How do you want it?"  
"Huh? Oh I don't care."  
"Me neither. Perhaps we should fry it. I like a—AAAH!" Arix whipped around as a white, fluffy form came clucking and flapping through the air and landed on his chest. He flapped his arm at it and it sailed across the room, narrowly evading a snatch from Steve and crashing into a window. It began flapping back and forth across the floor. "Or not," said Steve weakly, collapsing into a chair. The chicken flapped over his head, still clucking. Arix's heart was pounding from the surprise, but a burst of maniacal laughter escaped him. He leaned back against the wall, laughing breathlessly, and slid down to the floor. The chicken, now running around the floor, hopped over his legs. "Arix?" Steve was smiling, but he looked concerned. Arix quieted with an effort.  
"I'm… I'm good." there was a dull thud, and they looked up just in time to see the chicken throw itself headfirst into the window. Arix and Steve looked at each other and both began laughing.

 **A/N: Mmm, chicken. They're a bit hysterical, though. I always did see chickens as sort of instant comic relief animals, so here you go, I guess. Also, THIRTY CHAPTERS!**


	31. Please, Listen

Arix fell asleep that night, on the spare bed Steve had brought from his other house, which he set up against the inside wall. Steve himself fell asleep quickly and Arix lay awake listening to quiet sounds in the night: Steve's breath, an idling chirr from Michael, who was standing on the roof, and the tree creaking softly behind the wall at his side. Alright, he thought, maybe the worst is over. I can get some sleep.

He awoke in darkness from a dream of frantic activity, with his heart racing. Where were the lanterns? He reached out in the darkness and his hand brushed something smooth and hot, which tilted away from him. He heard a crash. "Arix?" said Steve. Arix calmed a little. He wasn't alone. But, wait, he wasn't dreaming either? That wasn't good.  
"Steve? What happened to the lanterns?" He was a little surprised at how terrified his voice sounded.  
"You put them out." Steve sounded alarmed as well.  
"I what?!"  
"Put them out. I wasn't, ah… are you alright?"  
"I guess so."  
"Good. I mean, I think you were sleepwalking, I wasn't sure what to do with you." they both froze at the sound of movement from across the room. "…Get down." something snarled. Arix didn't move. A freezing panic was creeping through his veins as sounds of fighting came from the darkness close beside him. "Arix, light! Go downstairs and get a lantern! Better yet, stay there, and close the trapdoor!" he couldn't move, but they seemed to be leaving him alone for the moment… no, here was something. His skin tingled as it approached quietly from the left and he knew what it was without seeing it.

The witch wrapped cold fingers around his upper arm, and he finally found strength to lash out, throwing it backwards. The air screamed as it prepared an attack, and a faint light gleamed in ghost flames, revealing a shining black eye, a few hanging tatters of flesh. Remembering Steve's method of dealing with witches he roundhouse-kicked, sweeping the air in the area of its head and neck. His foot connected with what felt like a skull and the thing fell back with a snarl, the ghost lights flickering out. Suddenly there was light. A torch blazed in Steve's hand as he came around the bend of the wall. The witch was in tatters, bone showing through shreds of drying flesh, with one eyehole vacant. It half-stood, hissing, and Steve's sword blade whizzed between chin and shoulders. At that, Arix's mind broke.

"Arix?"

"Arix."

"Arix."

When he was next aware of himself it was bright day and he was huddled on his bed. The lanterns were blazing. According to Steve, he'd gone catatonic. He believed it.

He didn't sleep much after that. Neither did Steve.

Steve took to sitting outside, on the deck accessible from the kitchen, looking at the stars. The deck itself was well lit and far out in the open where nothing could reach it, but Arix stayed inside even after Steve showed it to him. It was too close to the darkness. It was pretty in the daylight, though. The deck faced over a cliff, where the forest dropped away and he could look over waving branches to the horizon. But at night this wasn't visible. It was all dark.

"Arix," said Steve, quietly. "Come out here." Arix put his head up. He thought he heard something. It was none of the sounds he was afraid of—it sounded more like music. He got up from the table and walked out onto the deck, where Steve sat dangling his legs over the edge.  
It was music. It seemed to come from the ground and from the trees, and it fell trembling from the stars. It seeped through the darkness and the woods with a strange sweetness. A deep thrumming note that seemed like the breath of the night air. Then, slowly, several carefully enunciated notes, falling into place with a sweet precision of harmony that brought tears to the eye, that made you instinctively strain to hear, afraid the music would die away. It didn't, just yet. The notes lingered in the air, barely audible, a faint tremor and a tingle along the skin, then returned, softer, with an altered arc of sound at the end. Then, marching downwards, the notes disappeared into the forest floor, sinking into the roots of the trees.  
"I thought only Mages could hear it," said Arix when he was certain the music had died away.  
Steve smiled. "Really. That's very elitist of you."  
"Well… I guess it is?" Arix sat cross-legged beside him, but a bit farther back from the edge. Steve produced an object out of thin air and began working at it. Arix was used to this by now, or at least, he thought so. He glanced over and found Steve knitting the end of a hideous green and purple sock. "You knit?"  
"Yep."  
"….Okay then."  
"Would you like me to teach you? It's very relaxing."  
"No."  
"You really only use one needle at once, if we could tie one down and—"  
"Steve, no."  
"Are you sure?"  
"I do not want to knit."  
"Alright. It's nice to have a clean pair of socks once in a while. My original ones hadn't been washed in a week at the time I er—got fixed like this."  
"I see." Steve tilted his head back and breathed deeply.  
"Have you ever noticed there are different smells at night?"  
"Er. I guess?" Arix sniffed. Steve still had his head back.  
"It's beautiful up there."  
"Huh?"  
"Can you see the stars?"  
Arix looked up. A blanket of ice crystals on a dark sea. "Yeah."  
"Sometimes I think there is no God and we're spinning into an infinite emptiness. And I think I'll never be anything but wrong, and the Corruption will win, and I'll be alone on the earth for the rest of its existence. Then sometimes I hear the music. Very faint, but it's there. It's there." Steve looked at him and grinned. Arix saw the starlight glint in his eyes for a moment, then all was dark. He stiffened.  
"What?"  
"Wait, hold on…" he covered his left eye and looked out over the leaves. An expanse of dark, a blur of starred sky. He moved his hand to cover his right eye. Dark leaves ruffled by the breeze, arced over with tiny pinpoints of light. "I have night vision."  
"Really?"  
"Just on the left side."  
"Nice." Arix looked at him. "Well, I mean, it's only on one side, but that's better than nothing."  
"I… I'm not supposed to have night vision."  
"Oh. Well, if you're worried that you'll turn into an inhuman abomination like me, it's not the eyesight that does that. I've always had that and it's darn useful. Maybe now you won't fall down any more holes, hey?"  
"True." Arix closed his right eye and looked down at the sea of leaves. His vision had been steadily improving until he could stand the daylight and see as clearly as he could ever remember seeing, but he hadn't noticed the improved night vision until now. His left eye had never fully lightened. The white was white, but the iris was a dark muddy shade of green that blatantly clashed with his other eye.  
"What now?" said Steve sleepily as Michael appeared behind them, staring at a nearby branch. He narrowed his eyes and gave an unpleasant-sounding growl. There was a faint vibration in the air and Steve's head jerked up.  
"What was that?"  
"Something teleporting."  
"Another enderman?"  
Steve glanced at Michael, who promptly disappeared. "Well that's not helpful. No, I don't think so."  
"Doesn't he talk?"  
"Very rarely. I'm not sure exactly why, but I don't think it's easy for him."  
"Huh." well, there had to be a reason why endermen so rarely dealt with humans. They practically never came into the city. Which was good. There were a lot of eyes to accidentally make contact with. He hadn't previously thought of endermen as being sentient, but now he was sure of it, and it gave a new dimension to the question.

 **A/N: So you know how music sometimes starts playing in vanilla minecraft and it's just beautiful and it's… it's just… I love the minecraft music, OK? So I was wondering how that would translate in this world…  
If you're on DeviantArt you'll know that it's my birthday today. (I thought that I had disabled the birthday notifications actually, but apparently not.) I wanted to finish this and have a chapter update as a birthday present for you guys. We don't watch TV so we didn't hear about last night until we went out today. I'd decided to have lunch at a Chinese tea house that recently opened, and sitting there, drinking chrysanthemum tea, the news is blaring the story. A young man native to America walked into a Florida club with an assault rifle and killed 50 people. ISIS thinks he's cool because he supports them. Hey, free death, they didn't even have to come over here. And an American anti-gay group thinks he's the judgement of God on the gay club which he attacked. Listen. ****_Nobody_** **should be celebrating this, especially Americans, even if you agree with the some of the shooter's base beliefs. You don't walk into a business in peacetime in your own country and shoot people. That's how we make our world a hell. If we could all learn to respect one another enough to discuss differences in belief without screaming, setting things on fire or, for the love of God, SHOOTING people, we might all be able to help each other out.  
HAHAHAHAHA. Right? If your opinion differs, you're going down. Boom. That's just how we work here, apparently, and I'm sick and tired of being human if this is the only way we can relate to one another. We're sitting in the dark in a world filled with monsters, listening for the music.  
Do me a favor on my birthday. The music is very faint, you won't hear it if you're not listening. So listen for it.  
Oh, and drink some chrysanthemum tea while you're waiting. It's supposed to help you feel alert and it tastes like sunshine. **


	32. Fortune

It hadn't happened again. Steve seemed to think he was improving, and Arix let him. A desperate plan was half-forming in his head.

Steve had given him the glowstone charm to keep, and he wore it constantly. It was only a faint ward against the night, but it was something. He worked on striking flint and steel with one hand. He'd been bad at it with two. "I didn't even own one of the things because I was so bad at it."  
"How'd you start fires?"  
"Magic."  
"Ah."  
"You don't sound impressed."  
"I've already seen what you can do."  
"Only under the influence of—whatever mind-altering weirdness of evil went on back there. Under normal circumstances my magic's much more boring. It takes at least five minutes, sometimes fifteen, of glaring at the kindling and poking it with my staff while cursing. And a second try usually fails if I let it go out. Not extremely impressive."  
"Useful though."  
"It would be if I were more patient. I adapted to doing without fire for the most part because I didn't want the bother of dealing with it."  
Steve laughed. "Well, that's why you're so bad, you don't practice!"  
"Pff. I'm not going to either." he caught himself rubbing his wrist against the edge of the chair and stopped. It constantly itched and burned and he had to stop himself from scratching it and destroying the delicate new tissue. The mark was coming back in a corrupted form which he didn't think he'd have been able to use if he wanted to. But it didn't seem willing to leave.

Michael had stopped appearing, and Steve said that he rarely stuck around for even as long as he had. Argos was a comfort and much needed distraction to Arix. He had a sort of feeble exuberance, and Arix could hold his own in a tug-of-war with his injured arm on one side and the dog's nearly toothless gums on the other. Argos never gave up, tugging and growling faintly, then looking up and wagging his tail as if to reassure Arix that he didn't mean it.

He still wasn't sleeping, and it was wearing him down. He lay awake at night, kept up by the constant infuriating burn in his wrist and a fear that if he slept the darkness would creep inside. The house was far too quiet with Steve and Argos sleeping. He lay listening the creak of wood and the night breezes moving in the darkness around the house, aware of the wide open expanses of bare leaves washed by moonlight, and he began to feel lonely—something that had never happened to him before in the Outlands, although truthfully, he hadn't stayed outside the city for this long since first coming there all those years ago. He began to realize how isolated Steve was and wondered why he wasn't insane. Then again, he remembered, he had guessed that Steve had indeed snapped at some point in the past and gradually learned to deal with it. He was an enigma. But he wasn't enough to keep the darkness away, or for that matter to stop his feelings of—was it homesickness? For a place he barely tolerated, and got into so much trouble in? But it was the hub of humanity, and at least it was never boring. He was starting to remember the good things about Nowa. The way the last rays of the sun washed the stones with gold and scarlet, sparkling from windows. The frenetic noise of an early market. The even green lawns at university, the lanterns hanging from the trees in parks. The sound of singing when the sun rose. Someone always sang to it. Good luck, he supposed. He'd lost track of which superstitions belonged with which. Night prayer was a very old tradition, he thought, so it made sense that Steve knew it. And he was entirely stumped on why he sometimes lit a small fire and burned a few shreds of his bandages and some of the herbs he was still using to treat him.

It was easy, now, to get Steve talking. Arix only had to betray the slightest interest in a subject to have him chattering on, perhaps for hours. Sane or not, he had probably been desperately lonely. He helped Arix climb down to ground level and showed him which trees had wood better suited for bows and which for arrows. He dragged him around the tree that held the treehouse showing how strong it was. He tried to teach him how to cook—although they disagreed on how much progress was being made there. Arix asked how he made his tools, and he built a forge out of thin air under the treehouse and excitedly showed him how it worked. Then he was distracted for a day with making Arix a better sword. He didn't have a very high opinion of the sword he'd been using. Arix understood; he'd taken it from a zombie and only kept it because it was too battered to resell for much money. But it had always served him well and he'd grown attached to it. Or her. "Natalie isn't flashy but she works just fine."  
"Natalie is barely staying in one piece and hideously unbalanced. I can't believe someone made this, looked at it and went 'yup that looks fine, let's sell it.' Major laziness going on there." he held the sword on his palm and frowned at the way it flopped off instead of balancing. "What type of sword do you prefer, lighter or heavier?"  
"Er?"  
"At the moment I'd say lighter, as you're still learning to use that arm. What's your preferred style? Slashing? Stabbing?"  
"Staying alive?"  
"Well yes. You do know some swordsmanship, right?"  
"…I can kill things with pointy things."  
"Oh dear. We're going to give you lessons."  
"Lessons?!" the last time someone had said the L word they attempted to teach him long division. It had ended in tears. Their tears—he'd felt better after eating the paper. After that, whenever he saw a sheet of paper with too many numbers on it (too many being more than five) he had to suppress an urge to chew holes in the offending portion. But it turned out alright. Steve wasn't making him do fancy foot movements and seemed more or less satisfied with his grip. Mostly he had to adjust to using a weapon which wasn't a piece of junk. And, of course, to using his left hand. He had to think hard to remember how to make simple movements—he was translating from the side they would normally have been performed on. And he much preferred slashing, he discovered.

"I'm worried about Fortune," he said while they were eating dinner. Eggs. There were a lot of eggs recently, and occasionally a chicken. Steve looked curiously at him.  
"If it's something you don't believe you can change, why think about it at all?"  
"No, my horse. I named him Fortune."  
"Oh!" Steve put his fork down. "You were in the gravel flats, right? Right? There's a plain near there, with other horses. I'll bet he went to visit them."  
"You think so?"  
"I might be able to find him, actually. I can travel quickly." he'd shown Arix the skeleton horse. Arix grimaced.  
"Would you? I mean I don't—"  
"Yes. I should. I'll leave tomorrow."  
"Tomorrow, huh?"  
"Do you want to come? The skeleton horse can probably carry two. Although, it would be awkward if it fell apart."  
"No… maybe not."  
"Alright. What's he look like? Besides that he'll be the only one wandering around in tack."  
"Black, tall, scarred on the left haunch."

It worked. He'd known it would. And he _was_ worried about Fortune, of course. Steve left the next morning, after showing him again where everything was in the house—and causing several things which hadn't been there in the first place to appear for his convenience, including a huge crate of coal. Much more than he would need, assuming he was only using the oven for cooking. Which was convenient. Arix waited several hours to be sure he was gone, pacing back and forth in the kitchen. Then he dragged the coal to the trapdoor and dumped half of it down, watching the black shards bounce across the forest floor. Well that would be a pain to retrieve. He retrieved Natalie from under his bed, tucked her under his belt and started down the ladder. He was bit shaky by the time he reached the bottom and leaned against the tree to rest. A bird called from nearby and he jumped. It was the first time he'd been outside alone since entering the caves and he was feeling strangely agoraphobic. But he was focused enough on the task at hand to ignore it. He lay his sword in the forge and began gathering up the scattered pieces of coal.

 **A/N: Mmm, Arix is being shady. I wonder what he's planning?  
Also: I feel your math-induced pain, man. I also chewed holes in my paper in second grade.  
Heeey! Look at this! This is a thing! : / / trefoil-underscore dot deviantart dot com /favourites/69622378/Mythos-Art-by-people-who-actually-draw (Had to spell it out thanks to FFN's hatred for links.) Convenient-Alias's picture especially is a very good depiction of Arix at the moment, but with fewer bandages.  
If you draw (at all! Like, even a little!) and if you so desire then by all means send me your scribbles, I will be happy to see them. If none of you draw, hey, no harm in asking. I love seeing people's artwork and I think this could be fun. Contribute! Nothing shall be turned down! (Unless it's blatantly against canon or very, very NSFW… I feel like I need to insert this clause so that nothing comes back to bite me but seriously, give me anything! Yaaay!) **


	33. Banish

The woods were too quiet. Arix jumped at every birdcall. Natalie sat with the end of her blade in the shimmering coals, and he paced. He had no idea what he was doing, he told himself. He'd seen a horse branded once, but that was all. Yet there was no question in his mind. He was doing this, or at least trying. The constant irritation in his wrist alone goaded him to reckless action. Even another kind of pain was better than this. But even without that, he thought, he would have come to this. He had to get it off, permanently. If a brand didn't work then he didn't know what to try. The thought frightened him. He pulled Natalie carefully from the coals and hefted the blade.

Several inches of the tip glowed faintly red.

This is insane, he thought. Then he knelt, held the sword between his knees and pressed his wrist flat against the red hot blade.

Well, it wasn't itching anymore. That was a relief. Or would be, when the searing pain from the burn stopped. He took his wrist away and looked at it.

The corrupted mark was now ringed with an angry red burn.

He flung the sword down and stumbled towards the ladder, then vertigo sent him reeling towards the cliff. He fell on his face in the leaves. He didn't want to try climbing the ladder, and he had no water with him. The burn was becoming its own type of torture. He twitched his fingers in the leaves. His hand still worked, at least. But he'd failed. What was the thing? He wished Red was with him. He might not have answers, either, but he'd always known more about the spiritual stuff. Slowly he curled up around his hand and blew gently across the burn. It helped a little. He licked it and blew across the damp surface. That helped a bit more.  
Alright, what next? He could give up. He could. Really. He knew he wasn't going to, but the possibility was there, certainly. The fact that he knew he was never going to do it didn't change that. Actually, it was probably the sanest choice at this point, he told himself. He considered it. Then he sighed, pushed himself up and put the sword back in the fire. While it heated he paced slowly around the base of the tree. What next? He thought of a spell Khau had taught him, to 'bind and banish.' He'd said it was in case they ever accidentally summoned something nasty from another world and it killed everyone except Arix. They never had, and he'd been suspicious that the whole thing was just a prank on the new guy, but now he was willing to try anything. And the words were still there. Spells tended to stick. They weren't easily forgotten. He could try it, but he'd never heard of it being used for something like this. Worst case scenario, it worked too well and he banished himself. Was that possible? Arix had a feeling that, with his luck, he'd be the one to discover it if it was. He checked the sword—not hot enough—turned it over and resumed pacing. Now he wondered if he should have asked Steve for help. Steve wouldn't have wanted to do this, though, and Arix hadn't had the stamina for a long argument. And he felt that it was something he had to do alone.

At least, if he failed spectacularly enough to not be alive by the time Steve got back, Fortune would have a good home.

He wanted to pray. He'd never done it much. There were too many contradictory religions floating around and he didn't have time for that. At this point, though, he'd take any help he could get, if he only knew who to ask. Now that he thought about it, he'd probably pick whatever being Steve prayed to. He liked Steve, although he was rather strange. Arix had asked him a few days before, "what do you think God is like?"  
"Which one?"  
"I thought you said there was one."  
"Oh. Right. Well, there are gods all over the place, but they're comparatively finite."  
"That sounds too academic."  
"Alright. Come with me." they were in the woods at the bottom of the cliff. Steve led him to a clearing and sat in the grass. Arix flopped down next to him and waited for a few minutes. He'd decided that Steve had forgotten his question and was about to fall asleep when Steve answered. "He's like the grass."  
Well that was weird. "What?"  
"Grass. It's quiet, it doesn't fight, but it's not still. It's always growing. And whatever you do, you can't kill it. Year after year it comes back. It's the first to bring life back into burned ground."  
"Well that's not an analogy I've heard before."  
"It's not a very good one. It makes sense to me, but that's because of—things."  
"Things," said Arix. "That's very descriptive." Steve looked at him. "What, you think I have any skepticism left? Just tell me."  
"I've been to another world, where people lived once. The whole world was stripped of life. Cities and mountains fell. Lakes dried up. For years it was a wasteland, but then the grass began to come back. The world became covered with plains, and fissures that had opened in the earth filled with water. Old creatures that had survived in caves came up into the sunlight and swam through the deep grass like water." he sat looking at the grass rippling in the wind. "When I start to lose hope I remind myself that the grass always comes back. It's a sign." he took a deep breath and lay back in the grass with a chuckle. "Or, you know, it could be, if you like thinking about things too much. I don't really know anything, OK? Ask someone else."  
"Someone else are all idiots."  
"Not all, I hope."

Arix cleared his throat. "Hey, God?" Jeb that sounds dumb. Also I hope Jeb isn't up there being offended at my disrespectful use of his name. Then again Steve said Jeb and Notch weren't divine. He'd better hope he was right. "Look… I don't know you very well, OK? But you're friends with Steve, right?" everyone is friends with Steve. Except Herobrine. "Help me out, here? He'd like that." he looked through the bright woods. A few leaves fluttered down where two squirrels fought over a comfortable branch. A bird called. What had he expected? Some sort of sign? Arix snorted at himself and resumed pacing. Nobody was going to help him. He would try the spell, though. It wasn't like he was getting anywhere without it. He closed his eyes, remembering, then carefully spoke the first words, just loud enough to escape his lips. That sounded right. He kept walking, repeating the words, trying not to think. He'd fallen into a sort of trance by the time he noticed that the sword was red hot. He carefully sank down and clasped it between his knees, still muttering, automatically now. Then he hesitated, not because he couldn't remember the next part but because he was suddenly afraid. Well, he might as well try. Arix screamed the final words of the spell and clapped his wrist against the blade.

The woods were washed out in a white hot sea of pain. Something crashed into him and he fell. He'd run into a tree. He stood, shuddering. That was definitely a bad idea. Where was the treehouse? He tried to walk and fell again. He finally placed a sound he'd been hearing for some time—it was himself, whimpering. He pushed himself back to his feet and reeled towards the treehouse. It's working though, he thought, then wondered where the thought had come from. He had absolutely no idea what he was doing but he needed to somehow get up the ladder and soak his hand in water.

He didn't realize he'd missed the tree until the ground slipped out from under his feet and he saw treetops beneath him.

His next memory was of his body wrapping around a branch, and a snapping noise. Then he was oddly weightless. The rest of the trip to the ground was a confusion of crashing, snapping, and being pummeled with bark. Then for a while nothing touched him. Arix wondered if it was over. Then he hit the ground.

Consciousness came and went in flashes of white and black. He couldn't breathe. Finally the white resolved into a blur of leaves above him and he realized from the pain in his chest that he was taking in gulps of air. He was trembling and weak, beyond what he could attribute to the shock of falling off a cliff. He didn't think he could stand. He looked at the cliff stretching far above him and lost consciousness again.

The sky was red between the branches. Night was coming. He had to get up, but he didn't want to try moving. The woods faded back into nothingness.

When next he looked, it was because a loud crackling had caught his attention. The sky had faded to the color of an old bruise, but the trees were underlit with a strange brightness. He looked towards the top of the cliff. The trees along the ridge were blazing torches of flame. A flaming branch crashed down into the trees at the foot of the cliff near him with a burst of light.

He ran.

 **A/N: Look, I'm not dead! This is has been the longest time without an update in a while, but I've been really busy.  
This chapter goes from "ah sh*t" to "AAAAAAAH SWEET JEB WHAT HAVE I DONE"  
AND THE WEIRD PART IS IT WAS NOT INTENTIONAL  
I did not know until the second time Arix burned himself that what happened was going to happen and I'm quite horrified at myself now  
help  
I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING OK  
**

 **Edit. Writing this chapter messed me up so I went ahead and brushed up and published a second mix of calming music on 8tracks. My 8tracks profile address is on my profile here, I can recommend the second one definitely if reading it was as bad as writing it.  
These author notes are the stupidest things ever  
you are not required to read them**


	34. Spreading Flame

The forge fire must have spread. Or he might have dropped the sword into dry leaves while it was still red-hot, although he didn't think so. At the moment he only cared about staying alive. A short burst of panic-fueled energy had carried him away from the bank of flames, but then he had backtracked, being swarmed by zombies all the way. Fortunately he had his new sword. When he got closer to the fire, where the glow kept monsters away, he sat shakily on a log and coughed in the smoky air. Trapped between a spreading fire and a malevolent darkness, bruised, possibly with a few broken ribs, and limping. He had a sword, a glowstone charm, half-night vision and an increasingly bedraggled set of clothes. He took deep breaths, trying to control his rising panic. Just survive until morning. Don't think any farther than that. He closed his eyes to protect from the stinging smoke. It was choking him, but he didn't hear any zombies around, so things were comparatively alright for the moment.

He had almost succeeded in calming down when a fireball slammed into the ground below the log and exploded, flipping him into the air.

He scrambled up, leaves in his hair, and looked around wildly. Somewhere in the smoke there was laughter. He looked all around. Nothing. Nothing. Smoke and tree trunks. Above, only smoke. No stars. Giving up, he suddenly found Herobrine directly in front of him, hands cupped around a crackling sphere, charred and red like surface lava. Arix fled and another fireball slammed into a tree next to him, drenching the trunk with flame. He's making it worse, thought Arix, and a hint of rage showed briefly through his fear.

The next few minutes were hazy in his memory. Not like the ones which seemed distant after nearly becoming a zombie, but were still undeniably his own. The time in which he dodged and leapt through the burning woods seemed like someone else's memory altogether. He wasn't part of it. Something had broken inside him and he had reached a new level of fear. He kept running, disregarding the shooting pain in his leg, aiming for where he thought the stream was. Herobrine was playing with him. Maybe if he reached the stream, he would let him go. But he must have been wrong, because when he drew near the boulders marking the course of the stream the fireballs increased and began hitting closer to him, splashing him with embers. He backtracked and weaved between tree trunks, aiming for a piece of bank with no boulders, where he could easily access the water. There. He threw himself into a final sprint, coughing.

A burning branch crashed down in front of him. He was going too fast to stop, so he tripped into it, rolled towards the bank and dropped over the edge. He heard a sharp hiss as he hit the water, then he sank into cool, dark silence. Above him through the dark water was a rippled view of flame. He began to feel starved for air and flailed his way to the surface just as a branch fell into the stream near him with a hiss and a cloud of steam. The water was becoming choked with blackened branches. Arix let the current carry him—he could just keep his head above water by dogpaddling furiously. The current was heading away from the worst of the fire, and he hadn't seen any more fireballs, although he didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing. He'd fallen into a half-sleep while dogpaddling when a strange echoing clash made him jerk up his head. Half of the stream diverged into a cave mouth directly in front of him. By the time he'd noticed where the current was taking him, he was almost inside it. He flailed wildly and found himself entangled in branches which had snagged in the mouth of the cave. He scrambled up on top of the snag and made his way to one side, dipping into the water as branches snapped and shifted under him. A constant roar from nearby told him that just past the snag the water plunged far underground. He caught sight of a ledge and crawled onto it. It was just wide enough to lay down on his side, so he did, and lost consciousness for a while. He regained it slowly, dully, with the roar of water in his ears. He lay in a dim golden glow. He unhooked the charm from his belt and used it to look around his surroundings. A stream of water poured steadily into the darkness below him. A constant rain of mist kept him dripping wet. He ached and shivered. A short distance below him was a wider ledge. He crawled down to it, curled up, placed the charm nearby and drifted in and out of consciousness for several hours. In one of his more awake moments he held his wrist in the light of the charm and looked at it. An ugly burn covered it. He saw no trace of the mark, to his surprise. It was almost with a feeling of dismay that he realized he must have succeeded. Casting the spell had felt _wrong_. Like he was ripping himself in half. The feeling wouldn't leave, either. If he'd known it would be like this he might not have been able to do it.

Somewhere below him, deep in the darkness, was a faint reddish glow. He knew it must be lava, although he couldn't see anything but the hint of light. And, he thought, a hint of movement. Something growled. He covered his eyes and groaned. "Aaaaaaah… I'm okay… I'm okay…" he had to lower his hand to a more comfortable position for his burned wrist.

 **A/N: OH YOU THOUGHT I WASN'T GOING TO GIVE YOU ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER? I WAS FEELING EVIL TODAY, SORRY.  
Having decided that dialogue paragraphing really is the way to go (yes I changed my mind halfway through a story. Sue me.) I've just gone back and added paragraphing to all the chapters that didn't have it. I have also done some minor editing and, per a request from a friend, changed High Emperor Augustus' name to High Emperor Strandquist. Said Strandquist is rather pleased at this and I think it's hilarious so we now have an Emperor Strandquist. I didn't care much for the discount generic Rome reference anyway. **


	35. Upstream

It had been many hours and the human still hadn't moved. It was getting rather boring, but Herobrine was used to boredom. He did wonder, though, if the human would ever get up. It couldn't have choked, because it was lying right in a draft of clean air from inside the cave. Still, it might simply have died of shock and exposure. It wouldn't surprise him. What interested him at the moment was the flow of water through the cave mouth. It seemed to be ebbing. He teleported outside, an arm half-raised to protect his head.

There were no flames for a long distance. The ground was wet. He shifted his weight from foot to foot curiously. Then, he understood. Steve. He took the wooden object in his hand.

Of course he was off firefighting in the place where there were most flames. Herobrine ducked underwater to soak his clothes before teleporting. He was starting to lose interest in this whole fire business. His clothes reeked of smoke.

Steve was on the skeleton horse, changing the course of a stream, axe in one hand, stopping to beat out small fires. Herobrine appeared across the new stream from him. "So you're back." Steve's head whipped around but he was too busy to be immobilized by fear.  
"Where is he?"  
"Who? The human? Why would I care?"  
"That's a good question! What are you doing here?"  
"I assume he's dead. Humans don't hold up very well to fire. Why?"  
"If I catch you spreading this fire just to screw with me I will—I will—think of something really infuriating to do!" Steve galloped off to the next troublesome area, shouting "Arix!"  
"Thanks, that's a good idea," said Herobrine, because of course. Not that he actually felt like undoing Steve's work. He was sick of fire and besides, he was out of fire charges. He spent some time walking through the blackened trunks of the trees below the hazed sky. Slowly the haze began to clear and the heat to fade from the ground. It was late in the day before he teleported back to the cave, and when he got there, the human was gone. His first thought was that it had rolled off the ledge and fallen to its death. He teleported to the bottom of the cave and found nothing, not even blood, which would mark where a zombie had found it. He teleported back up and looked around. There—a flicker of movement upstream. The human was up and walking. He was moving slowly with a limp, but walking. Perhaps there was a bit more of interest to be seen here. Herobrine followed.

Arix had woken suddenly to the fact that the waterfall behind him had dwindled to a trickle. He crawled back over the snag into the streambed, where the water now came only to his chest. The current was a gentle drift. The fire had mostly passed and he was alive. The cave had been a lucky choice, then. He still didn't feel good about it. He pulled himself onto a boulder and lay looking down at his reflection. His clothes had holes burned in them from flying embers. He glanced at the burn on his wrist and shoved it under water. The back of his hand was sooty and streaked with minor burns. He wiggled his fingers and watched flakes of ash drift off into the water. He wiggled his fingers again, testing his movement, and twisted his hand. He yelped. Well, he _could_ use that hand. He'd rather not try to until the burn had healed. Carefully he peeled off his shirt, wincing as he discovered new injuries. Well, he was able to move, and if nothing had killed him yet then he'd probably be alright for the moment. He examined his reflection. Some minor burns and scratches (minor to Arix, anyway) were all he could see. He traced the outline of one of his tattoos with his fingers. Then he touched the hilt of his sword. No, it was too sharp and unwieldy. He unhooked the charm from his belt and felt it carefully. The frame of the charm itself was too well made, but the clip had a sharp edge. He bared it and ripped it across a sigil on his chest, then looked at his reflection. Blood oozed up between the irreparably parted lines of pigment.

Fifteen minutes later he'd scratched across all of his main tattoos and was starting on the decorative lines that connected them when he stopped himself, hyperventilating. He was bleeding again and he didn't need any more of that. He tried to rinse the charm and dropped it. It glided down through the water and came to rest on the slime at the bottom, half-buried but visible as a murky glow. Arix huddled at the edge of his rock, almost sobbing. "Fuck." After a few false starts, some sputtering, and a moment of panic when he almost got trapped under a large branch, he retrieved it and crawled back onto the rock. He lay there and time passed by him without meaning. Suddenly he raised his head. Where was the sun? Whipping his head around, he found a reddish glow peeping between the treetops in what must be a westward direction. He forced himself up, pulled his shirt on and began walking. Almost by instinct he walked upstream, towards where the treehouse had been. He wasn't sure what his plans were. He was increasingly certain that he would die that night. He kept walking. He'd rather be in familiar territory.

The stream flowed into a wide, shallow section near the clearing where Steve had made the analogy about grass. The clearing was scorched now, but beyond it he could see the cliff, and the treehouse tree, now a bare charred pillar. He stopped at the edge of the ford, unsure if he should cross. Then he saw movement and tensed.

Steve was in the clearing, sitting on the blackened ground with a handful of dead grass. The skeleton horse stood nearby. He must have seen the smoke and come back. Arix walked into the middle of the ford and stopped again. Should he go to meet him? He'd just burned his house down, and at least a large section of the forest he was so fond of. He stood without moving until Steve looked up. Arix, seeing his face, was able for the first time to believe how old he was. Steve's eyes widened, and he scrambled to his feet. "Arix?" he should turn, walk into the woods and lie down and die somewhere. But Steve was walking towards him. He took a deep breath.  
"Hey." his voice made hardly any sound, but Steve froze. Then he started running. Arix took a step back.  
"Arix no! Run! Other way! Get across the water and run!" there was a faint hiss from close behind. Arix turned just in time to see the creeper flicker white and begin to expand. Steve screamed from several yards away. Arix turned and dove towards the deeper water upstream, feeling a concussion from behind force him deeper underwater. Sand and leaves swirled through the water and he lost track of which way was up. Then someone caught his flailing arm and pulled him up, out of the water, onto a rock. He collapsed, coughing. "Got you."

Steve's voice was clear, medium-toned and generally soft. This wasn't his voice. It was a hint too harsh. Also, Steve was still screaming, now from the other side of the stream. Arix looked up and saw Steve slide to a stop across from him. He turned. Herobrine was crouched next to him on the rock.

 **A/N: Arix is really losing it. Which is entirely understandable, but not the best. Especially for Arix.**


	36. Mortality

"For the love of God, don't you have anything better to do?!" screamed Steve. Herobrine shrugged, smiling.  
"He's done something quite unprecedented. Naturally I have a scientific interest in how it turns out."  
"Herobrine, let him go."  
"I'm not holding him." Herobrine lifted his hands and looked down at Arix, who started to inch towards the water. Herobrine grabbed him by the nape of the neck. "Kidding. I am holding him." he flipped Arix over and lifted his chin, staring into his eyes. "Hmm. Sure you're a mage? You have to be ruthless, and I don't think you are… then again, people change. Perhaps you'd do better, now. If you hadn't gone and ruined it." he reached for Arix's wrist but Arix hid it behind his back, remembering how Herobrine had brought the mark back the last time. Herobrine frowned and seized his head. It was the same attack he had felt before in the caves, but different. Something in him was missing and this invasion tore at the wound, unable to latch on. He started screaming and didn't stop. "Alright, wow, it did work. Good for you, you broke yourself. Now shut up." Steve ran without slackening his pace to the edge of the stream. Herobrine watched in disbelief as he leapt across the rocks and launched off the furthest point of one, heading straight towards him. Herobrine teleported away at the last second and Steve flew through the air where he'd been and crashed face first into the rock. He turned immediately and stood over Arix, glaring across the stream at Herobrine, who had appeared on the rock he'd jumped from. "Look at you. Able to parkour for once in your life."  
"Get out."  
Herobrine stared. For several seconds neither moved, and the only sound was Arix whimpering. A trickle of blood ran from Steve's nose into his beard. Then Herobrine shrugged, chuckling. "Keep it if you want it. I don't think it's good for much now, except starting fires." he turned and walked across the blackened field, finally vanishing with a flash near the treeline.

Steve relaxed and took a deep shuddering breath. Then he sank down and pulled Arix to a sitting position. "Are you OK?" Arix opened his mouth to say yes, smelled the blood on his breath, and threw up in Steve's lap. "Oh. Poor guy." he pulled Arix into the water and washed both of them off, trying to get Arix to talk. "I saw the smoke near the end of the day and came back as quickly as I could. Are you alright? Where were you?" Arix silently showed him his wrist. Steve looked at it carefully, then flexed Arix's hand, careful not to hurt him. "Huh. I can't tell if it's that's an improvement or making it worse, yet." he pulled the front of Arix's shirt up to see where the blood on his chest was coming from, and looked for a long time at the cuts across his torso and upper arms. "Was this necessary?" he said, darkly.  
"Maybe?" said Arix. Steve picked him up and walked towards the cliff, whistling to the skeleton horse, which followed. Arix let his eyes close. "Steve."  
"Yeah?"  
"I think someone has it in for me."  
"Are you kidding? You should have been dead I don't know how many times now!"  
"Yes."  
"But you're not dead. You're not dead."  
Arix sighed. "Whoopee." Steve squeezed him tighter.

Steve set him down against the base of a charred tree at the top of the cliff. "Wait here, alright?" then he clambered into the mess of blackened boards where half of the treehouse had collapsed. Arix fell into a kind of stupor. He knew Steve was rummaging through the boards, and that he stopped and sank to his knees at one spot, but he didn't consider why. Then he came out, carrying something wrapped in a blanket, set it down and took out a shovel. Arix woke up as he started digging. He scrambled to his feet. "Is that.." he inched forwards and caught sight of a dog's skull under a flap of blanket. He turned away with a cry. "Oh God Argos! I completely forgot—" Steve dropped the shovel, grabbed Arix and dragged him backwards, away from the edge of the cliff.  
"Careful."  
"I killed him!"  
"Calm down." Arix paced, whimpering. "It's just a dog."  
"It wasn't just a dog, he was your only companion out here." Steve looked at the ground and the muscles worked in his neck.  
"Don't worry about it too much," he said after a moment. Arix looked towards the blanket and froze, the back of his neck prickling. Something was moving under the blanket. A dog stood up, swaying on stick legs, charred to the bone. Its black eyes bored into him, glittering, black like deep caves, the black of eyes taken by the Corruption. It crouched and raced forward, leaping at his throat, and he stumbled backwards with a scream. His feet fell on air. Then he was dropping backwards over the cliff, watching Steve shrink away above him. There was an almighty thump. Then stillness.

Steve looked from Arix, sprawled on the forest floor far below, to the pile of dry bones under the blanket. A hollow laugh came from the unfallen half of the treehouse. He looked up. Herobrine was sitting in the burned frame, legs dangling over the edge. "What did you do?!"  
"Illusion. Quite easy, given his present state."  
"Why would you..."  
"It was too good not to. Did you see his face?"  
Steve looked stonily at him. "I did."  
A board cracked, and Herobrine teleported to the ground before it could fall. "Does it bother you? After all, he did burn your house down. I'd expect you to be angry."  
"I don't care who burned my house down. What I care about is that you just made Arix jump off a cliff."  
"Oh, you don't? That's good, because I did, actually. Knocked some coals out of the fire. I thought it would make things more interesting. Although it is rather Arix's fault anyway, for making the fire in the first place."  
Steve shook his head. "Why?"  
"Why not?"  
"Because it's petty. I expected more of you, alright? All this time of you hunting me and torturing I thought, well, he has some reason to be angry. And as long as you enjoyed being evil maybe it wasn't so bad. I thought you were off accomplishing great things, burning cities and slaying giants, but no, you're throwing illusions at people who are already insane and starting forest fires just to watch the trees burn up. Why would you do that?"  
Herobrine sighed loudly. "There's only so much to be done here, Steve. Are you going to check on your friend? I believe he's dead, but perhaps not, after all he survived the fall before."  
"Did he?" Steve rushed to the edge. Arix still hadn't moved. He started to climb down. Herobrine appeared below him with a white flash. Steve moved faster.  
"He's not dead at all," marveled Herobrine, sitting Arix up. Arix supported his own weight without moving, staring straight ahead. "But he's gone nonresponsive." he snapped his fingers in Arix's face, then slapped him lightly.  
"Don't you dare," said Steve, jumping to the ground. Herobrine slapped Arix harder. His head snapped to one side. Otherwise, he made no movement.  
"Totally out of it," said Herobrine. Then something crashed into him.

In two hundred years, Steve had never attacked him. He'd tried once or twice. It had always ended with him cowering in a corner or fleeing in a blind panic while Herobrine laughed. So he wasn't prepared. This must have been why Steve was able to grab him, sling him off his feet and beat him against the cliff wall and the ground several times before pinning him down by the neck. "Don't you fucking dare." Herobrine looked up at Steve's face in bewilderment. He hadn't expected Steve's angry face to look so terrifying. He'd forgotten—if, actually, he had ever known—that Steve _had_ an angry face. Then he realized that he was about to black out and he didn't have time to teleport. He felt a new kind of rage, a rage tempered with fear. He struck out, but already darkness was falling.

Steve dragged Herobrine to the nearest tree, took out some strands of spider silk and tied him. A wooden object wrapped with a cord around his wrist was in the way. Steve tore it off and threw it without looking at it, and it fell in the stream and drifted away. Steve finally stumbled back to examine his handiwork. Spider silk blocked teleportation. Herobrine could easily burn his way out, of course, but it would hold him for a while. Was he waking up? Steve choked him again, careful to leave him just at the point of death. He didn't want him respawning and waking up. He wanted him dead to the world for a while. Then he walked over to Arix and knelt in front of him, realizing on the way how hard his heart was pounding. "Arix." nothing. "He's gone. You're alright." nothing. Steve picked him up and gasped as Arix's shirt rubbed against his chest. Looking down he noticed the livid burns where Herobrine's fingers had raked across his chest. He started walking. It took only a few moments to finish burying Argos and climb onto the skeleton horse with Arix in front of him. Fortune was waiting at the edge of the forest. He stopped briefly to juggle saddlebags—he didn't want to overburden the skeleton horse, but Fortune had saddle sores which he didn't want to agitate, either. Then they rode into the night.

 **A/N: Well, Argos survived longer than his namesake. The dog in the Odyssey dies pretty much the second after he's mentioned. The narrative is like "Oh look a dog! Now it's dead."  
Trivia time: Endermen cannot teleport while stuck in a cobweb. I do have a basis for the "spider silk stops teleportation" thing.  
If you live in the United States, Happy 4th of July! If you do not, then rejoice that you don't have to listen to fireworks going off all week at odd hours. **


	37. Islands

"I had already found Fortune by the time I started back. He wasn't with the other horses, he was at the edge of the gravel flats, waiting for you to come get him. That's a good horse you have."

Arix said nothing. He hadn't for the several hours they'd been riding, but Steve kept talking to him in hopes that he would.

"He's a bit worse for wearing his tack for several weeks in all weather, but he should be fine after a rest." he was also a bit worse for being dragged along behind an untiring skeleton horse, but Steve felt that was unavoidable. "Doing better than you are, to be honest." nothing. Steve sidetracked around a hill where he'd seen several skeleton archers. Fortune was beginning to lag, tugging at the reins in Steve's hand and stumbling now and then over uneven ground. But the sky was lightening. "Not much longer, friends."

Arix would remember crossing a rope bridge over a chasm in deep woods untouched by the fire, clouds of smoke and steam still rising lazily behind them. Steve pausing for a moment in a field and raising his face to a light rain. Dark clouds hung down to meet the smoke far behind. "Thank you," breathed Steve. Then he moved on.

It was bright day before Steve was willing to stop. He walked the horses to the edge of a lake. A small island with one tree sat a short distance out. Steve headed towards it after a zombie stumbled out of the underbrush behind them. The zombie made it to the edge of the water, where it hesitated, before falling forwards with a hiss of steam and lying inert in the clear water. On the island Steve took off Fortune's tack and watched the black horse drink deeply from the lake and finally flop down on the grass, too tired to eat. Steve had settled Arix into a nest of soft grass and he lay there without moving, eyes open. Steve lay down next to him. "You should get some sleep. We're going to keep moving after this." nothing, of course. Steve gave the surrounding area a final scan, drove his sword into the ground nearby where it would be within easy reach if they were interrupted, and closed his eyes.

Arix didn't sleep. Or at least, his eyes were still wide open when Steve started moving again at early afternoon. Steve was conflicted between taking the most direct route and a route that might throw off Herobrine if he followed, as Steve expected him to. But for the moment nothing interrupted them. Not even a creeper.

Steve was growing worried about Arix. They stopped to rest later in the afternoon and he examined him again for injuries. Did he have a concussion Steve had missed? No. Not even any broken bones, except maybe a few ribs. Steve remembered hearing that the limper you were when you were hit, the less it hurt. Maybe Arix had blacked out on the way down and it had saved him physically. But the constant silence was starting to worry him. He was able to get Arix to drink some water, but nothing else. They moved on.

Arix was in a glass tunnel. Outside was time, and an endless succession of trees and shade, light and wide open spaces, hills and valleys. At night Steve walled himself and Arix into a dirt block hut and talked to him. Steve went out first in the morning and killed anything that needed to be killed, then foraged a quick breakfast for himself if possible, packed Arix onto the skeleton horse and started riding. Flickers of light against tree trunks, ruins, waves upon waves of grass. And then the sea, stretched out unbroken before him. Steve slid to the ground and led the skeleton horse to the edge of a cliff, where he pulled Arix down and sat him in the grass, facing the shore. "Pretty, isn't it?" Steve flopped down on his stomach and looked over the edge. "Have you seen the ocean before? You probably have." nothing. He waited for several hours. Stars began to appear. He dirt-blocked the two of them in and rolled Arix onto his back in what looked like a comfortable position. Then he waited, watching the stars through a gap he'd left in the roof. How long could Arix go without food? And what about sleep? Steve wasn't sure if he ever slept. He was getting better though, he told himself. The last day he'd been less rigid and had seemed, briefly, to understand what he was saying. He looked at Arix and moved his arm to rest on the ground. "I don't know if you can hear me. I'm used to talking to myself. It's nice to have someone listen for a change." he huddled into a ball. "Just please don't die. Maybe in the city they can help you." he sat there for several hours, listening to the soothing sound of the waves. It was like the music, deep and throbbing, like the heartbeats of an unimaginably vast and beautiful creature. After a while he heard a new sound. The dry hollow sound of bones knocking together. He filled in the hole in the ceiling, dug a doorway on the opposite side and stepped out, filling it in behind him. He peeked around the corner and an arrow whizzed past. Well, it was only an archer, that wasn't so bad. Unless the zombies in the distance joined it. He waited for it to come closer, calling his sword into his hand. The clattering came slowly closer.

At the last minute he heard a growl and smelled a scent that told him that had been a bad decision.

The skeleton wobbled around the corner along with a mass of open-mouthed zombies. Steve plunged forwards and swung his sword wildly, careful to catch the archer's bow in his first sweep. The snarling, hissing and clattering lasted for nearly a minute, then it was over. Pieces of rotten flesh and disconnected bones lay strewn across the clifftop around the hut. Steve stretched, took a deep breath and looked towards the east. The sky was still dark. He had several more hours to wait. He went back inside, putting one block in the bottom of the doorway so nothing could easily walk in on them, and slumped down. Then he realized that the floor where Arix had been lying was empty. There was a scuffling from the corner. He looked. Arix was crawling across the floor towards him. When he reached him, he curled up next to him and lay trembling. Another zombie was mouthing at the open block of the doorway. Steve filled it in without looking and the sounds from outside became muffled. He gathered Arix up and hugged him. "You're back."  
"Hmm."  
Steve squeezed him. "It's so good to hear your voice again."  
"I'm… not saying anything."  
"You just did."  
Arix said nothing but slowly started to relax. "Where's Herobrine?"  
"Far away from here. I left him tied to a tree and ran. It's been days and I've seen nothing of him." Arix sighed.  
"Maybe… maybe he's gone?"  
"I hope so. He shouldn't be able to track you now, remember?"  
Arix took a few deep breaths and raised his head. "Wait, you tied Herobrine to a tree?"

 **A/N: Arix gets to cameo in a few pages of Rift!  
(without the spaces and *s) h*t*t*p* : / / baserbeanz dot deviantart dot com /art/Rift-847-With-guests-619527560  
Arix looks so much better here than I could draw him. **


	38. Valley

They rode slowly along the clifftop, waves crashing to their left. "Where are we going?" Steve looked up eagerly. Arix had listened to Steve's account of what he'd missed and silently scarfed down all of the food he'd had, but he hadn't spoken much since then. Steve was glad to hear the question.  
"We're taking you home."  
"Home?"  
"Nowa."  
"Ah. I don't strictly speaking have a home."  
"You don't?!"  
"Well I do have a place to stay. I guess what I meant was I always felt at home in the Outlands." not so much recently, though. Steve had a point. He needed a break.  
"Good. Herobrine's going to find me eventually. He always does. And he'll be mad. I don't think he'll bother you, though, unless you happen to be with me. If you're in the city I expect he'll simply forget about you. He doesn't care for humans, especially in large groups. But be careful to avoid the gravel flats in future, or anywhere in that area. You wouldn't want to jog his memory. He's also fond of Cleft Mountain, towards the Western Outlands. Don't go there."  
Arix was silent for a few minutes, processing this. He fingered the glowstone charm on his belt. "Will you be alright?"  
"Sure. It's not like this hasn't happened before."  
"That doesn't make it any better."  
"I'll be alright. He does have reason to be angry, this time." Steve looked ahead towards the southern cliffs around the valley of Nowa. "I almost wish I hadn't fought him. It was necessary. Although, perhaps not. I don't know. I don't know. Well, he's surely freed himself by now."

Herobrine let his head fall back against the tree with a groan. He had awoken with a pounding headache several days before and discovered that he was unable to teleport. He had then spent some time attempting to free himself from the spider silk binding him to the tree, without much success. He'd been attacked by zombies, fought them off with difficulty (most of his magic required the free use of his hands, which he didn't have) and lost consciousness again from blood loss. When he woke up a cow was nuzzling his face. He screamed at it and it ran away. He had succeeded in slightly loosening his bonds when he heard more creatures of the night approaching.  
The next time he woke, a slim shoot of grass was pushing up through the ash in front of him. He glared at it. He hated that piece of grass. Concentrating all his hatred for Steve and the universe, he produced a burst of flame that incinerated the tiny blade of grass. Satisfied, he leaned back against the tree. Now if only there were a way to just…  
Oh. Sweet. Notch. Of course.  
A few seconds later he had burned through his bonds and was flying, furiously smashing the charred trunk he'd been tied to into slivers and pouring lava across the forest floor. Finally when he'd calmed down he sat on the edge of the cliff and looked, panting, across the wreckage he had made. Well. Good thing nobody had been there to see that. What was wrong with him lately? First that juvenile mistake with the potions, which had dropped a house-sized squid on his head… he shuddered, trying to forget the slime. No. Steve. Steve was what was wrong with him. Wrath boiled inside him and he stood. He was finding that son of a bitch. He stretched out his hand—  
—which had nothing wrapped around it. He looked down, confused. Where had he put his Steve finder? Had he left it at home? He teleported to his base and spent several hours searching before remembering that he'd used it to find Steve during the wildfire, which meant that he'd had it with him, which meant that it had disappeared after the fire and not before… which made it very likely that Steve had taken it while he was unconscious. Herobrine ground his teeth. Great. Just great. Now he was angry and he didn't have anyone to take it out on. And Steve was getting crafty. When on earth had that happened? Steve had been acting differently, and it was probably Herobrine's fault, for getting too familiar. He'd let Steve grow less afraid of him and look what had happened. He was going to fix that. When he found him again, Steve was going to be very very _very_ sorry.  
At the moment, however, Herobrine was short on ideas and desperately hungry. He teleported outside, looking for animals. A fresh steak would be nice (and he didn't have any food in the house.) Nope, nothing. He zipped around the countryside, draining his magic (he had an almost unlimited store of energy but still, it annoyed him to waste large amounts needlessly) and becoming more and more irked. When a cow appeared on the horizon he warped straight up to it and impaled it with a bolt of energy. Once it had stopped twitching he realized that the meat around the wound was ready-cooked. Well, that was a nice feature. Extremely impractical, but still. He stuffed himself, left the rest of the cow to rot, and climbed a tree to rest, pleasantly full of protein and drained of mana.

They kept riding, moving more slowly, as Steve said that if Herobrine had been going to find them then he would already. But this couldn't be the only reason. Steve seemed reluctant to end the journey. Fortune's sores began to heal, the seashore dropped away behind them, and they climbed over increasingly rocky ground. Arix saw, as if in a dream, the landmarks he had passed countless times when travelling to and from the city. Then one evening they looked down into the valley of Nowa, where the city blazed in eternal light. The streets stood out like fiery veins in some enormous cinder-beast. Neither of them slept much that night. Steve combed and braided Arix's hair.  
The next morning Steve helped him onto Fortune and they stood at the cliff edge, where a path wound down across the rock to the green floor of the valley. "Going?" said Steve quietly after a while. Arix looked at him, standing with his hands deep in his pockets.  
"You're not coming down with me?"  
Steve looked up. "I see no reason to. Do you want me to come? I haven't been in a city in a long time."  
"Isn't that a good reason to go now?" Steve shifted uncomfortably. "Alright, I can walk the last few miles myself." he seemed strangely averse to meeting people. Arix thought he should be starved for company after all this time, but then again, maybe after all this time he was intimidated by the thought of many humans in one place. And there would certainly be less to explain if Steve weren't following him. "I'll come visit you."  
"Are you sure?"  
"I promise."  
"Alright. I would tell you to wait a while, several months at least, but I expect you'll need to use that time to recover anyway. By the time you get back to scavenging Herobrine should have forgotten about you. I hope." as they travelled, Steve had made him memorize the directions to another of his houses, the one where Argos and the chickens had been before he went to get them.  
"That sounds about right."  
"Be careful."  
"Sure." Arix nodded and extended his hand. Steve took it, then clambered onto Fortune and wrapped him in another of his gently crushing hugs. Arix held his breath, resigned.  
"Please do be careful and don't die. Yet."  
"I won't if you don't strangle me."  
"Sorry." Steve jumped down. Fortune gave him a disapproving look.

Steve watched until the tiny black dot had reached the city gates. He wasn't sure what he'd expected, maybe for Arix to turn back and wave. He must have had other things to think about. That was good. Steve, however, was a bit stuck. He walked the skeleton slowly back and forth across the clifftop a few times before turning towards home. Miles and miles of wilderness, but that didn't concern him greatly at the moment. He started riding.

Arix realized halfway down the cliff path that he still had Steve's lantern charm. Well, hadn't Steve given it to him? And he could always return it when they met again. He still liked having it with him at night.

Late that morning, the guards let a disheveled man on a black horse through the gate. He rode through without looking right or left. His clothes were torn, burned, and still showed traces of mud and bloodstains, and his right arm was a neatly bandaged stump. His left eye was a muddy green. He rode towards the center of the city and tied Fortune outside the library.

Unattended saddlebags were never left alone for long in Nowa, and a small ragged girl soon approached the horse, petted its nose, and then sidled towards them. There was a piercing whistle from nearby. She looked up and saw a woman with a violin shaking her head. "Shoo," said a man's voice from the other side of the horse, and the girl bolted without looking. "Who was that guy? He's either very naïve or very out of it."  
"That was Arix," said Kikoskia, scratching Fortune's neck. He was a perky-looking fellow with short golden hair and ragged clothes.  
"You know him?"  
"Slightly. He's another scavenger. He's been gone for longer than usual."  
"Was he always missing that arm?"  
"He's missing an arm? He has been through it."  
"Huh. Well, haven't we all." Helloween, the other speaker, shook back his hair to squint at the library. "Think he'll be alright in there?"  
"People don't attack you in the library, Hell. At least, not normally."  
"I mean, I hope he's not trying to burn the place down."  
"That does sound like him. What, Stirling?" the woman, who'd been standing quietly on the other side of the horse, tapped a long object protruding from one of the saddlebags.  
"Mage, huh? What kind of mage walks off and leaves his staff?" said Hell, lifting it experimentally. Stirling made a confused face. "I guess we'll just have to watch it for him, eh?"

Arix kicked open the door to the research room and stumbled inside. Red looked up from the desk. Even when startled, his movements were deliberate and controlled. His two companions in white—scribes—reacted differently. The man backpedaled into the wall and dropped the book he was holding, while the woman flung a manuscript under the table with one hand, placing the other on her knife. He knew her, didn't he? Chlora. That's right. The other was Levvi. Siblings. "Arix?" said Red.  
"You were right about everything and I owe you an apology," said Arix. Red's eyes widened. He stood up.  
"Sit down, Arix. You're not well."  
"Do you accept my apology?"  
"Yes! Although I don't know what for—"  
"Everything."  
"Sit down. What happened?"  
Levvi still seemed to be in shock, but Chlora dragged a chair up and guided Arix into it. Red knelt in front of him, assessing his injuries. His gaze lingered on the missing arm and darkened eye. "I'm alright," said Arix. "I mean, I'm probably not going to die at this point. I haven't."  
"What happened to you?" Arix sighed, sinking back into the chair. Suddenly he realized how tired he was. Tired and sore, although that had become his new state of being. If he could just find a soft bed in a quiet place he would sleep for a week. That might not happen. He gathered his thoughts with an effort.  
"It's a long story."  
"We can wait. We're not doing anything, after all. Research isn't real work. Remember?" Arix looked searchingly at him for several moments before recognition dawned.  
"I said that."  
"You did."  
"I'm a jerk."  
"No, you're not. What happened?"  
Arix sighed, realizing how hard this would be. With an effort, he looked up. Red and the scribes were both watching him expectantly. "OK," he said. "Listen, it's a weird story."  
"I'm sure."  
"Uh. You've heard of Herobrine?"

 **A/N: We're wrapping up. There will be one, possibly two more chapters of this (probably one.) And then a kind-of sequel (While Rome Burns. Follow me if you want to see it when I start posting.) And possibly a oneshot/bonus chapter about things happening while Arix is incapacitated. Aaaand then the main story that these are all supposed to tie in to.  
Helloween, Stirling, and Kikoskia are all A) characters that will show up soon in different works and B) based (loosely!) on YouTubers. Loosely. They're characters. Characters influenced by certain people who do exist in the real world but have nothing whatsoever to do with them.  
I'm sorry, I categorically dislike YouTuber fanfiction and I tried to resist this, but they just kinda showed up in my head like "Hi we live here now and also we're really cool so you should totally use us in your stories." **


	39. Home

"Then what?" said Red quietly. Arix opened his eyes, realizing he'd fallen into a daze.  
"He brought me back." His fingers closed around the lantern charm clipped to his belt. "So now I'm here."  
"Where's the horse?"  
Arix paused. "Outside. I probably shouldn't have left him, now that I think about it." Red stood and helped him up.  
"You need to rest. Do you have somewhere to stay?"  
Well, that was a question. "Yeah."  
"It's not the Green Leaf because I had to pick up your stuff when your rent expired last month."  
"Shit. I mean thank you."  
"You could stay with me for now. I'm already keeping all your things in my room, I might as well have you too."  
"No. I've got a place."  
"If 'I've got a place' means there's a vacant spot under the bridge then no, you don't, because I'm not letting you do that. I never use the bed anyway, I sleep on a pallet, remember? I've been using it as a shelf for your boxes, but I could move those."  
"Alright. Thank you." Red had a short discussion with the scribes, which Arix didn't absorb, and then they went outside. Some people were standing around Fortune. Arix didn't take in this new development until he noticed the long-haired one twirling his staff around. His eyes narrowed.  
"Hey," said the scruffy one. "Arix?" Arix stared. It was Kiko. He knew the man, slightly. He looked helpful. "Hell, stop it." His friend replaced the staff. "Pardon the welcoming party. We saw you come in and we were a bit curious." They'd been guarding his horse. Arix suddenly realized how lucky that was.  
"Thank you," he said. Red rummaged in his pockets.  
"Oi," said Hell, "Cut that out. We were only here a few minutes. It's not a problem." Blatant lies, thought Arix, I was talking for at least an hour.  
"Good," said Red, quietly, "Because I'm not finding anything but lint and crumpled up papers."  
"Do you need help getting him home?" said Kiko. Arix and Red both shook their heads.  
"But thank you."  
"Hey, good to know another of the outsiders is still living. You won't mind if I check up on you later, will you?" the two left together, waving to a girl fiddling and dancing by a fountain.  
"Alright, get up there," said Red, gesturing to Fortune's back.  
"He has saddle sores."  
"He'll be alright for a little longer. You look ready to fall over."  
"I'm not."  
"Really, now. I know patience is one of the virtues, but it's not one that I excel in." Red bundled him into the saddle and took the reins in his hand. They seemed to be walking for a very long time in dust and heat and city smells, then all at once a fat priest was exclaiming  
"Good Lord! Who's that?"  
"This is Arix. He saved my life. And he's staying here for a while. With your permission?"  
"What? Oh. Granted. Wait a moment, what?"  
"He's tired." Red dragged him up some stairs, then there was silence, blessed silence, and a soft bed.

It was dark. He knew there were lights burning in the room, but outside it was dark, and he could feel the darkness pressing against the walls, sapping the warmth from the light, eager to engulf the small flames. Red was saying something, he didn't catch what. Red felt his pulse and then left. The next voice he heard was Khau's.  
"How long has he been like this?"  
"A few hours. Delayed shock most likely, I'm not sure." Tattooed hands gently prodded his injuries, pulled his shirt open. There was a long silence. Khau lightly touched the slashed tattoo on Arix's chest.  
"Who did this?"  
"He said he did it to himself."  
"You're joking."  
"It's not funny."  
Khau carefully unwrapped Arix's wrist bandage and looked at the burn. "No. He couldn't have. Someone needs to die."  
"It's what he said, I'm sure of it."  
"Then he's been badly shaken up. There's some anti-mage fanatic out there that needs to be hexed in the face, and people are going to be lining up to do it once word gets out."  
"Wait until he's feeling better and you can hear the whole story." Great, thought Arix. There was going to be a lot of explaining to do, and he didn't know where to begin to explain things even to himself. Khau slipped an arm behind his head and began stroking his hair, speaking quietly to him, telling him to go to sleep. A great weight settled on him and he sank towards oblivion. But he couldn't let go, not now, not so close to the darkness, it would come inside and claim him.  
"I don't know why he's fighting," said Khau several minutes later. After another period of time Arix finally relaxed and Khau laid him down on the bed, then shook himself and stretched. "Whew. Now _I_ need a rest."  
"Thank you," said Red. Khau looked at him.  
"He's a friend. Thank you for coming to tell me."  
Red smiled. "He's a friend."

 **A/N: I couldn't write for a while because reasons, but I'm back now! Yay! I decided to split the final, long chapter after all because 40 is a much more even number than 39. Shhhh, no, it totally makes sense.**


	40. All a Dream

A time passed in which Arix could only remember the nights and the terror that came with them. Gradually he was able to stay awake during the day, to stand, to care for himself. Red was constantly with him. When Arix tried to send him away he sarcastically reminded him that he didn't have a 'real' job. Before long Arix was able to function normally. He felt utterly drained. Everything behind him seemed like a nightmare. Had it really happened? His memory had been nearly wiped out and was still trying to piece itself back together. He didn't feel certain of anything. Unfortunately, everyone wanted to hear his story. He gave a truncated version, leaving out Herobrine and the creepy voices—everything, in fact, except for the basics: trapped in cave, rescued, almost a zombie, rescued again.  
One of the first things he did when he felt like walking again was to look for the lantern charm in his clothes. Red had washed his pants for him, but the shirt, he said, hadn't been worth saving, between the tear down the front, the mud and blood stains and the burns. He'd left them folded on a chest along with his sword, belt, and other belongings. The charm wasn't with any of it. He asked Red if he'd taken it off and had to give a description of it.  
"I don't know, I might have. I don't remember seeing anything like that."  
And that was when he began to feel afraid. He went through all his pockets and the contents of his saddlebags, mostly survival supplies and a few odd objects picked up while scavenging. He found a packet of the herbs Steve had used on his wounds—if there had been a Steve—and put it aside, but not the charm.  
Someone had to have helped him. He had proof that he'd nearly become a zombie, and he couldn't have cured himself. He couldn't have put the braids into his own hair either, and they were still there. But everything in the caves—all the confused, hellish memories—had that been a bad dream? He had an awful feeling that it hadn't been, but at the same time, he was uncertain. And that almost made it worse. Had he imagined Steve and Herobrine and the voices from the darkness, while all along someone entirely different was helping him? He couldn't believe it. But he couldn't disbelieve it. He wished Steve had come into the city with him. He needed to see him again.  
At the bottom of one of his saddlebags he found a small doll, just the size to fit into his hand. He'd picked it up in a recently abandoned settlement, toying with the idea of trying to return it to its owner when he came back to the city. It was very soft, with fluffy brown yarn for hair and blue stitched circles for eyes, dressed in a light blue top and dark pants. He stared at it. It looked like Steve. He didn't remember noticing what the doll looked like, he barely remembered picking it up. But perhaps it had been the inspiration for Steve all along. Could Steve have been imaginary? It made no sense. He went on as long a walk as he could manage, shaky on his legs, the doll clenched in his hand. For several days after that he refused to go outside. Then one day he dressed carefully, took the packet of herbs and went out, leaving the doll propped on the windowsill near his bed.  
By the time he reached the herbalist's shop he was out of breath, and stopped to collect himself before going inside. The walls were lined with glass jars full of dried plant matter. A piping sound from the back told him that Ma Hilde was there. She had the voice of an eight-year-old girl, and often a man walking in the street would pause when he heard it, looking around for the sweet little guttersnipe who was probably begging for pennies, and a moment later find himself barreled over by Ma Hilde. "Hello?" he called. The piping stopped with a thump of something heavy being set down and a moment later Ma Hilde lunged into view.  
"Arix? Well, I don't often see you in here."  
"No."  
"What's wrong? Rats won't let you sleep? Cat has a hairball it can't hack up? If you're trying to find ingredients for a potion I won't be much help, so you'd better have a list."  
"Actually, I met someone like you, in the Outlands. He made his own blends." Arix took out the pouch.  
"A boy, eh? Well, that's nice, for once. Is he pretty?" she winked.  
"Depends on your standards," said Arix. She took the pouch and pawed through the contents.  
"Hmmm. Your friend doesn't mind trying new things. How does it work?"  
"Very well. It might have saved my life."  
"Really!" she glanced at the missing arm.  
"Long story," said Arix, bracing himself for another round of questioning. But Ma Hilde said nothing.  
"Why'd you bring this to me? Any particular reason?"  
"I wondered what you'd think of it."  
"I think it's interesting. If you want any more out of me you'd have to let me look at it a bit more."  
"Alright."  
"So you'll leave it with me, then?" Arix nodded. "How will I get back to you?"  
"Huh. I don't have anything to do at the moment. I could help you, actually—"  
"If I let you, yes you could. Don't you have a job?"  
"I scavenge. But I'm not ready to go back outside the walls yet."  
"I see. You're interested in herbalism?"  
"I am now."  
"I'd like to meet this friend of yours. He must be a very interesting person." Arix nodded. "I don't do anything particularly interesting, mind. I keep a garden, I poke around in the dirt, I make tea. Mages don't often find it worthwhile."  
"I'm not a mage."  
Ma Hilde silently stared at the tattoos on his arms. He twitched his sleeves down. "Alright."  
"Really." He unwound the bandage on his wrist and showed her the burn. It was mostly healed, but still very ugly, and he preferred to keep it covered. Her eyebrows raised.  
"Well that's a new thing. Let me see." She examined it, then bound it up with salve from a small earthenware pot. "It's a bit late, but this may help the meat grow back. You never know. How'd you get it off?"  
"I'm not entirely sure. It's not easy."  
"Another reason I never cared for the thing." She didn't have the mark. Well, that was interesting. She did carry a handsomely carved staff, but now that he thought about it she didn't treat it like an object of power, and perhaps it was just for leaning on. She did use it like a cane when she walked—until she became excited about something, at which point her stubby legs moved faster and faster until there wasn't time for the staff to touch the ground in between steps. "So you're staying, then?"  
"If you don't kick me out, I'd like to."  
"Hmm, I'm thinking about it." She shoved a small mortar and pestle into his chest. "Grind this up fine for me and we'll see how you do." She bustled about, dusting jars and singing in her high voice.

Red met him at the door when he came home. "It's getting late. Where were you?"  
"Improving my mind through study."  
Red looked suspicious. "Something is terribly wrong with you."  
"Really."  
"What's the rest of the story?"

If Steve were real, then he was somewhere in the Outlands, waiting for him to come visit. Arix wanted to go search for him, see if the directions he'd been given worked. If so then he'd have no more doubts, even if the charm had somehow disappeared without a trace. But he couldn't leave. He was growing stronger and learning to use his left arm, but even the thought of spending the night outside the walls terrified him. He needed more time.

 **A/N: Oh my goodness it's finished. Wow.  
OK, question. I have an idea for a oneshot or stand-alone bonus chapter about Khau and Red and some of the others doing stuff while Arix was unconscious in 39. I may or may not write it. Sound interesting? Regardless, this is by no means the end. Expect lots of writing from over here.  
Oh. And about the charm. If you prefer that being unresolved, so be it. If you really want to know what the heck's going on, though, go read the author note I added to ch. 7. **


End file.
